Kenes, Bulent. (2024). “Populism and Time: Temporalities of a Disruptive Politics.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. November 27, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0022
Andy Knott’s Populism and Time: Temporalities of a Disruptive Politics offers a groundbreaking exploration of populism through the lens of time, challenging traditional spatial and ideological frameworks. Knott and his contributors delve into the temporal dimensions of populism’s emergence, persistence, and transformation, drawing on historical, philosophical, and regional perspectives. The volume’s innovative use of metaphors and analyses sheds light on populism’s ability to navigate crises and disrupt hegemonic norms. By examining regional variations and the interplay between technology and populist dynamics, the book provides fresh and valuable insights. It is an essential resource for scholars, redefining populism as a diachronic force shaping contemporary politics.
In Populism and Time: Temporalities of a Disruptive Politics, editor Andy Knott and contributing authors offer a compelling exploration of the relationship between populism and temporality, an often overlooked yet crucial aspect of this political phenomenon. While the spatial dimensions of populism have dominated much of the academic discourse, this volume distinguishes itself by situating populism within the framework of time, presenting fresh theoretical insights into its emergence, persistence, and impact.
The collection originated from an idea for a workshop that ultimately took place online during the COVID-19 lockdown. Keynote speakers María Esperanza Casullo and Simon Tormey laid the groundwork for the book’s rich intellectual inquiry. Comprising ten chapters organized into three thematic parts, the book addresses historical, technological, and regional dimensions of populism. Contributions from scholars such as Tormey, Clare Woodford, and Casullo tackle critical questions: What triggers populism’s explosive emergence? Why does it seem to thrive in particular historical moments? And how do technological advancements reshape populist dynamics? Why does populism arise in advanced democracies? What role does algorithmic interference play in forging populist solidarities? And why are populist leaders so resilient in power? These inquiries are enriched by conceptual frameworks like cyclicality, spatiotemporality, and populist constitutionalism, offering a nuanced lens to examine populism’s global manifestations.
Knott’s introduction critiques teleological frameworks that dismiss populism as a fleeting anomaly. He instead situates it as a dynamic, diachronic force capable of disrupting hegemonic political norms. Drawing on the philosophical insights of Nietzsche and Heidegger, alongside Machiavelli’s interplay of necessity and contingency, the volume investigates populism’s ontology, asking whether its recurrence stems solely from the politicization of “the people” or deeper ontological parameters that shape modern politics. Particularly compelling is the volume’s focus on regional specificity, especially in Latin America. Scholars such as Paula Biglieri and Eleonora Mesquita Ceia analyze how populism in the region navigates the dual pressures of rupture and institutionalization, challenging its characterization as inherently unstable.
The first chapter of the book titled “Introduction: Populism, Metaphor, Temporality” penned by editor Knott, highlights the neglect of temporality and seeks to address this gap by advancing a nuanced, interdisciplinary framework for understanding populism through the lens of time. Knott begins by critiquing the predominant spatial focus in populism studies, which has been shaped by disciplines such as comparative politics and international relations. He notes that global and regional analyses often overlook how populism operates within temporal frameworks, an omission that limits the depth of our understanding. This chapter ambitiously aims to reframe populism not as a static anomaly but as a dynamic, time-sensitive phenomenon with implications for political stability and transformation.
Central to Knott’s analysis is the role of metaphors in shaping perceptions of populism’s temporal character. The tidal metaphor, for example, suggests cyclicality and permanence, aligning with the ebbs and flows of political phenomena. In contrast, the wave and eruption metaphors evoke disruption, irregularity, and transformative power, underscoring populism’s capacity to challenge established political orders. These metaphors reveal populism’s temporal flexibility, adapting to various contexts while disrupting hegemonic political structures.
Knott further draws on philosophical perspectives, engaging with Martin Heidegger’s notions of temporality, Jacques Rancière’s plural modernities, and Niccolò Machiavelli’s interplay of necessity and contingency. By linking these theoretical insights to populism, Knott presents a compelling argument for understanding populism’s emergence, persistence, and evolution as deeply rooted in temporal contexts. Knott’s introduction effectively situates populism within a broader temporal framework, offering fresh insights into its ontology and dynamics. By bridging philosophy, history, and political theory, this chapter not only reframes populism as a diachronic phenomenon but also invites readers to reconsider its role in shaping contemporary political trajectories. It sets the stage for a rich exploration of populism’s temporalities throughout the volume.
In the second chapter titled “On Populism’s Beginnings,” Knott embarks on an ambitious exploration of the origins of populism, mapping out three distinct historiographical approaches while critiquing their methodologies and assumptions. This chapter serves as a foundational inquiry into the historiography of populism, bridging disciplines such as history, political science, and theory to illuminate how populism’s beginnings have been conceptualized. Knott identifies three frameworks: the first locates populism within specific historical case studies, such as the People’s Party in late 19th-century America and Russia’s narodniki movement. These case-based approaches often tie populism to particular social and economic conditions, such as industrialization and urbanization. The second framework, exemplified by Federico Finchelstein, elevates populism as a transnational regime with its roots in mid-20th-century politics, positioning it alongside liberal democracy, fascism, and communism. Lastly, theorists like Margaret Canovan and Ernesto Laclau trace populism back to antiquity, framing it as a persistent political logic grounded in the antagonistic relationship between “the people” and elites. Knott’s interdisciplinary analysis critically interrogates these approaches, highlighting tensions between populism as a historical phenomenon and as a timeless political form. By weaving together historical narratives and theoretical insights, Knott not only questions the adequacy of existing historiographies but also underscores the need for more nuanced, transdisciplinary research.
Clare Woodford’s chapter “Populism, Impossible Time, and Democracy’s People Problem” is a scathing critique of prevailing populism scholarship, exposing its foundational contradictions and its often-unacknowledged complicity in undermining democracy. Central to her argument is the bold assertion that much of the literature on populism perpetuates a flawed conceptualization of “the people” and “democracy,” framing the former as a perpetual threat to the latter. Woodford dismantles this perspective, arguing that such scholarship narrows democratic possibilities and inadvertently bolsters authoritarian tendencies. Woodford critiques the dominant binary framework that pits populism against democracy. Scholars, she argues, have too readily labeled populism as anti-democratic, ignoring the complexity of its interactions with democratic processes. By casting populism as inherently problematic, these academics, whom Woodford does not hesitate to criticize as gatekeepers of an elitist liberal-democratic orthodoxy, distort the political landscape into a restrictive populism-vs-democracy dichotomy. This oversimplification delegitimizes left-wing alternatives and conflates democratic expressions with anti-democratic tendencies, thereby shrinking the space for meaningful political discourse.
Her engagement with theorists like Rancière, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe underscores the necessity of redefining populism. Woodford particularly emphasizes the aesthetic moment of democracy, where competing definitions of the people coexist, making politics an ongoing, transformative process rather than a static structure. By rejecting the “false dichotomy” of liberal minimalism versus right-wing authoritarianism, she challenges scholars to embrace the pluralistic, dynamic nature of democracy. Woodford’s chapter is a clarion call for populism scholars to abandon their entrenched biases and reconsider their theoretical foundations. Her critique is not merely an academic exercise but a plea for a renewed commitment to democracy that respects the people’s role as its central actors.
Adrià Porta Caballé’s chapter, titled “Politics and Time: The Nostalgic, the Opportunist and the Utopian. An Existential Analytic of Podemos’ Ecstatic Times,” offers a profound exploration of Podemos’ political trajectory in Spain, reframing its internal conflicts through the lens of temporality. By weaving Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s philosophies into his analysis, the author develops a compelling framework to dissect the tensions within Podemos, which he categorizes as nostalgic, opportunist, and utopian – aligned with the past, present, and future, respectively. Caballé’s critique challenges traditional analyses that confine themselves to ideology, class, or politics, arguing that they neglect the crucial role of time in understanding political movements. His temporal framework posits that the internal factions within Podemos – Pablistas (nostalgic), Errejonistas (opportunist), and Anticapitalistas (utopian) – represent distinct, albeit incomplete, relationships with temporality. This fragmentation, Caballé argues, was both the source of Podemos’ initial success and its eventual decline.
The chapter excels in its integration of Heidegger’s existential temporality and Nietzsche’s historical triad, applying these abstract concepts to a concrete political case. Particularly striking is Caballé’s assertion that Podemos’ fragmentation mirrors the disunity of political temporality itself, where prioritizing one temporal mode over the others inevitably leads to imbalance and conflict. This approach not only sheds light on Podemos but also provides a heuristic for analyzing broader left-populist movements. Caballé’s work is a masterclass in blending philosophy and political analysis, offering an original perspective on the existential dynamics of time in politics. His call for an “authentic politics” that integrates nostalgia, opportunism, and utopia underscores the necessity of temporal unity for sustainable political action.
Simon Tormey’s chapter, titled “Populisation: Populism – Temporary Dysfunction or Modernity’s Revenge?” offers a comprehensive and provocative exploration of populism’s entrenchment in modern politics, challenging conventional narratives that view it as a transient phenomenon. Tormey’s core argument positions populism not as an aberration but as a symptom of deeper systemic crises in liberal democracy and late modernity. Through his concept of “populisation,” he illustrates how populism has evolved into a normalized and persistent feature of the political landscape. The chapter critically interrogates the dominant frameworks in populism studies – treating it as a regime, strategy, or event – and instead reframes it as a product of endemic tendencies within late modernity. These tendencies, including globalization, media transformation, and the erosion of traditional authority, create fertile ground for populist movements and leaders. Tormey’s analysis links populism to the cultural and economic grievances exacerbated by modernity’s rapid changes, offering a nuanced explanation of its rise across the political spectrum.
Particularly compelling is the chapter’s assertion that populism thrives on the pervasive sense of crisis, amplified by new media technologies that foster immediacy, emotionality, and a demand for simplistic solutions. Tormey argues that these conditions have entrenched a style of politics characterized by spectacle, hyper-representation, and an “outsider” ethos that increasingly defines democratic engagement. Thus, Tormey positions populism as a response to, and symptom of, late modernity’s failures – a reflection of systemic anxiety and dislocation rather than a temporary disruption. His insights provide a vital framework for understanding populism’s permanence and its implications for democratic systems.
In his chapter, titled “Populism and the Mirror of Technology,” author Michaelangelo Anastasiou’s presents a critical intervention in populism studies by scrutinizing the predominance of synchronic analyses. He argues that such approaches reduce populism to static, episodic snapshots, neglecting its diachronic evolution and the political dynamics underlying its (re)constitution in time. This critique challenges the established methodologies within the field, which often favor universal definitions or linear cause-effect reasoning. Anastasiou identifies two significant shortcomings in current populism scholarship: first, the reliance on fixed typologies that fail to capture populism’s fluid and context-dependent manifestations; and second, the under-theorization of the political practices that enable populism’s emergence and evolution. By equating populism with a series of static outcomes, according to Anastasiou, these studies overlook its historical and temporal dimensions, thus underemphasizing the creative agency and disruptive potential inherent in populist politics.
The chapter advances a compelling theoretical framework grounded in post-Marxist thought, linking populism’s spatiotemporality to the affordances of modern technology. Technology, Anastasiou argues, acts as both an enabler of spatial connectivity and a catalyst for temporal disruption, thereby broadening the scope of populist possibilities. Through this lens, populism is positioned as a political logic rooted in the interplay of space and time, facilitated by the indeterminacy and dislocation characteristic of modern social configurations. The exploration of populism’s ontological ties to technology in this chapter offers an innovative perspective on its historical emergence and its adaptability across contexts. By situating populism within the broader socio-technological dynamics of modernity, Anastasiou provides a critique of synchronic methodologies, calling for a more nuanced, diachronic understanding of populist politics.
Jamie Ranger’s chapter, titled “Populism, Social Media and the Technospheric,” critically examines the intersection of populism, social media, and the “technospheric condition.” Drawing on Bernard Stiegler and Hartmut Rosa, Ranger argues that the technospheric condition—a sociotechnical milieu accelerating since the Industrial Revolution—reshapes politics by distorting democratic contestability into technical expertise. This environment fosters public distrust in political institutions and contributes to the resonance of populist rhetoric, which opposes “the people” against technocratic elites.
The chapter explores how the technospheric, underpinned by social media and the attention economy, intensifies political polarisation and disrupts traditional political processes. Ranger critiques the algorithmic steering of political affinities on platforms, arguing that chains of equivalence, central to populism, are increasingly shaped by algorithmic interference rather than authentic political will. This phenomenon, termed “semi-automated politics,” complicates the authenticity of populist solidarities, raising questions about the agency behind contemporary digital populism.
Ranger highlights the dual potential of social media as both a counter-hegemonic tool for progressive change and a breeding ground for reactionary forces. He emphasizes the risks of fragmented political subjectivities in the hyperconnected technospheric world, where misinformation and algorithm-driven partisanship challenge cohesive political mobilization. This chapter offers a deep analysis of the technospheric’s role in reshaping modern politics, making it a vital contribution to understanding populism’s rise in the digital age.
María Esperanza Casullo’s chapter, titled “Antagonism, Flexibility, and the Surprising Resilience of Populism in Latin America,” provides an incisive analysis of the resilience of Latin American populism, challenging dominant narratives that depict populism as a fleeting political phenomenon. By focusing on the leftist populist presidencies of Hugo Chávez, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Fernando Lugo, Casullo highlights how flexibility in antagonistic narratives and the capacity for rapid public mobilization underpin the endurance of these leaders in a politically volatile region.
Casullo effectively argues that populist leaders construct a compelling “myth” centered on a heroic leader, a villainous antagonist, and a damaged collective identity. This myth fosters unity among diverse constituencies and enables populists to adapt antagonistic rhetoric to shifting political contexts. Furthermore, she underscores the role of street mobilization as a critical tool for countering threats, illustrating how mass demonstrations often shield populist leaders from impeachment, protests, or coups. Her chapter also addresses objections to populist resilience, including arguments that attribute their longevity to favorable economic conditions or the absence of opposition. Casullo counters these claims by emphasizing the strategic nature of populist politics, which leverages antagonism and mobilization to navigate crises. Casullo’s exploration situates populism as a rational and effective political strategy, offering valuable insights into its persistent presence in Latin America’s political landscape.
Chapter 9 by Paula Biglieri and Gloria Perelló, titled “Populist Temporality in Latin America,” offers a theoretical exploration of the temporal and spatial dynamics of Latin American populism. Anchored in the works of Laclau and Mouffe, the authors argue that populism embodies an irreducible tension between rupture—a dislocation of established order—and spatialisation, the institutionalisation of new configurations. This duality, they contend, defines the “heart” of populist politics.
The chapter’s strength lies in its nuanced analysis of populist temporality as a moment of radical reactivation that disrupts entrenched practices, creating space for new possibilities. Biglieri and Perelló underscore how populist leaders connect this rupture to historical struggles, constructing a lineage that situates present movements as heirs of past resistance. This linkage not only legitimises their causes but also sustains popular mobilization by blending hope for the future with a reimagining of the past.
The authors also highlight how spatialisation translates populist ideals into institutional frameworks, such as constitutions that challenge neoliberal or colonial legacies. However, they argue that this institutionalisation never fully resolves the rupture, leaving an open-ended struggle that ensures the continuous evolution of populist politics.
Eleonora Mesquita Ceia’s chapter titled “Populism and Constitutionalism in Brazil: : An Enduring or Transitional Relationship in Time?” provides a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between populism and constitutionalism in Brazil’s political history. Through case studies of key populist leaders—from Getúlio Vargas to Jair Bolsonaro—the chapter examines how populist projects have alternately reinforced and challenged liberal-democratic constitutionalism. The chapter argues against the simplistic binary often drawn between populism and constitutionalism in Global North scholarship. Ceia highlights the diverse constitutional engagements of Brazilian populist regimes, noting how some, such as Lula’s and Dilma Rousseff’s administrations, upheld liberal-democratic principles, while others, like Vargas’s and Bolsonaro’s governments, pursued constitutional reforms and institutional capture to consolidate power.
Particularly striking is the chapter’s discussion of populism’s dual nature in Brazil, where it emerges as both a response to crises and a tool for political inclusion. Vargas’s reforms integrated the working class into the political process, while Bolsonaro’s far-right populism weaponized constitutional mechanisms to deepen societal divisions. Ceia underscores that these approaches reflect not populism as a monolith but its variability across time and contexts. A key takeaway from the chapter is the distinction between populism and authoritarian populism: while both can challenge liberal-democratic norms, only the latter consistently undermines constitutional protections and institutions. By contrasting different administrations’ approaches, Ceia offers an insightful critique of the notion of a “permanent populist constitutionalism” in Brazil. This chapter underscores the resilience of Brazil’s 1988 constitution, which has withstood authoritarian populist pressures, reaffirming the importance of institutional integrity in democratic systems.
Andy Knott’s concluding chapter titiled “Time for More? Populism’s Prospects” offers an examination of populism’s future by juxtaposing theoretical models with real-world contexts. Rather than presenting definitive answers, Knott embraces the speculative nature of his subject, framing populism as a contextual phenomenon shaped by crises and historical transitions. The chapter effectively contrasts Tormey’s populisation thesis, which views populism as a permanent feature of modern politics, with the cyclical model, which situates populism within recurring patterns of hegemonic breakdown and reconstruction. Knott’s use of sociological and ontological approaches enriches his exploration of populism’s adaptability and persistence. By grounding these models in historical examples from Europe and Latin America, the chapter avoids abstract theorizing, offering a nuanced understanding of populism’s dynamics. The critique of anti-populist narratives adds depth, challenging the dismissal of populism as an aberration.
Populism and Time: Temporalities of a Disruptive Politics is a thought-provoking exploration that repositions populism within the framework of time, challenging traditional spatial and ideological analyses. By delving into the temporal dimensions of populist emergence, endurance, and transformation, Knott and his contributors provide a groundbreaking interdisciplinary perspective on this political phenomenon. The book’s innovative use of temporal metaphors, alongside rigorous engagement with historical, philosophical, and regional contexts, illuminates populism’s dynamic interaction with crises and hegemonic transitions.
Knott’s editorial vision is particularly commendable for bridging philosophical insights and political realities, effectively situating populism as a phenomenon deeply intertwined with historical and temporal conditions. While some chapters revisit familiar theoretical debates, the collection as a whole offers fresh and innovative perspectives, especially through its focus on regional variations and the transformative interplay between technology and populist dynamics. This volume is an essential resource for scholars and students of political theory, providing a deeper and more nuanced understanding of populism as a diachronic force shaping contemporary politics. Ultimately, the book stands as a timely and significant contribution to the ongoing debate on populism’s evolving role in influencing and redefining political trajectories in the modern world.
Andy Knott (eds). (2024). Populism and Time: Temporalities of a Disruptive Politics. Edinburgh University Press. 272 pp. Hardcover $103,12, ISBN-10: 139952772X, ISBN-13: 978-1399527729
Please cite as: Koskina, Stavroula. (2024). Populism, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in the Southern Caucasus. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). November 26, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0088
The 16th session of the Mapping Global Populism Panel Series hosted by the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) critically examined the interplay of populism, democracy, and authoritarianism in the Southern Caucasus. Featuring insights from six distinguished scholars, the event focused on Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, offering a detailed analysis of their respective political landscapes. Moderated by Professor Cengiz Aktar, this session underscored the broader implications of populist and authoritarian trends on regional stability and global democracy.
The 16th session of the European Center for Populism Studies’ (ECPS) “Mapping Global Populism” panel series, aimed at creating a comprehensive understanding of populism worldwide, was held online on October 31, 2024. Titled “The Challenging Dynamics of Democracy, Authoritarianism & Populism in Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan & Georgia),” the session featured insights from distinguished scholars on various manifestations of populism and authoritarianism and the state of democracy in these countries. This report provides an overview of the topics analyzed, with some accounts of each speaker’s contributions.
The panel was moderated by Dr. Cengiz Aktar, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Athens and Advisory Board Member of ECPS. Thomas de Waal, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, discussed the level of autocracy in Azerbaijan and its regional implications. Dr. David Aprasidze, Professor of Political Science at Ilia State University, Georgia, explored the evolution of populism in Georgia, while Dr. David Matsaberidze, Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, presented on “The Rotating Populist Discourses of Post-Soviet Georgia – From Nationalist Populism to Conservative Populism.”
Dr.Jody LaPorte, from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, analyzed hegemonic authoritarianism in Azerbaijan. Dr. Ashot S. Aleksanyan, Professor and Chair of Political Science at the Faculty of International Relations, Yerevan State University, focused on post-war Armenia’s democratization and European integration under the shadow of populism. Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, provided an overview of the state of democracy and populism in Armenia during the session.
The panelists emphasized how populism contributes to democratic backsliding and institutional fragility in hybrid regimes. While each country reflects unique manifestations of populism, shared patterns include the erosion of liberal democratic norms and the increasing fusion of political and economic power within ruling elites.
The discussions highlighted how regional actors navigate shifting global power structures, particularly under the shadow of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These external pressures exacerbate domestic challenges, influencing political strategies and policy orientations across the region.
Country-Specific Analyses
Tom de Waal’s presentation provided a comprehensive analysis of Azerbaijan’s political trajectory and its broader implications for the South Caucasus. He highlighted Azerbaijan as a model of hegemonic authoritarianism, emphasizing its consolidation of power through a fusion of political and economic interests within the ruling elite. He noted Azerbaijan’s skepticism toward multilateral institutions and its alignment with illiberal regional actors like Russia and Turkey. De Waal underscored the Azerbaijani regime’s strategic use of sovereignty discourse to legitimize its dominance while curtailing civil liberties, media freedom, and opposition activity. He also addressed the geopolitical influence of the Ukraine war on the region, arguing that Azerbaijan’s approach reflects a broader trend of illiberalism gaining ground globally. Finally, he pointed to Azerbaijan’s vulnerabilities, including its reliance on declining oil revenues and the absence of mechanisms for political feedback, which pose challenges to the sustainability of its centralized authoritarian model.
Dr. David Aprasidze’s presentation critically assessed the damaging impact of populism on democracy in Georgia, particularly under the Georgian Dream Party. He argued that populism undermines democratization in hybrid regimes by eroding weak institutions, corrupting political actors, and suppressing opposition forces. Tracing the Georgian Dream’s transformation from a progressive, left-leaning populist movement into a conservative, nationalist entity, he highlighted its increasing alignment with illiberal models, such as that of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. This shift has been accompanied by attacks on the European Union, restrictions on civil society and media, and the systemic manipulation of institutions to consolidate power. Dr. Aprasidze underscored that populism in hybrid regimes exacerbates public demoralization, weakens democratic resilience, and facilitates authoritarian consolidation. He concluded that the Georgian Dream’s trajectory exemplifies the broader risks of populism in hybrid regimes, portraying Georgia’s democratization as increasingly fragile and imperiled.
Dr. David Matsaberidze’s analysis explored the evolution of populism in Georgia through the concept of the “empty signifier,” tracing its progression from nationalist mobilization during the dissolution of the Soviet Union to the current rule of the Georgian Dream Party. He identified a pattern in Georgian politics of leaders utilizing populist narratives to consolidate power, emphasizing shifts from Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s nationalist independence rhetoric to Eduard Shevardnadze’s focus on order and stability, and later Mikheil Saakashvili’s anti-corruption crusade. Dr. Matsaberidze highlighted the Georgian Dream’s strategic pivot from left-leaning populism to conservative nationalism, blending Orthodox Christian values with populist sovereignty discourse to challenge the European Union’s liberal framework. He also criticized the party’s institutional manipulation, drawing parallels with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, noting the use of restrictive legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ policies, and attacks on NGOs and academia to erode democratic spaces. The party’s success, he argued, lies in its ability to exploit public concerns while fostering ambiguity between aligning with Brussels or Budapest, thereby undermining Georgia’s pro-Western orientation. Concluding with a pessimistic outlook, Dr. Matsaberidze warned that the Georgian Dream’s populist tactics and institutional control present significant obstacles to democratization and resistance by the opposition.
Dr. Jody LaPorte’s presentation examined Azerbaijan’s political regime, categorizing it as a hegemonic authoritarian model distinct from competitive authoritarianism due to the absence of meaningful opposition or electoral competition. She highlighted how Azerbaijan’s leaders, particularly President Ilham Aliyev, consolidated this regime through the marginalization of inherited opposition parties, extensive use of formal and informal mechanisms to suppress political activities, and active repression of emerging opposition groups. The regime’s centralized political economy, heavily reliant on oil revenues and controlled by the ruling elite, has further entrenched its authority by linking economic opportunities and upward mobility to political loyalty. Dr. LaPorte also noted the regime’s proactive measures to adapt to changing circumstances, including investments in green energy and economic diversification, which aim to sustain its authoritarian model amid declining oil revenues. While discussing potential vulnerabilities such as socioeconomic inequalities and the finite nature of hydrocarbon resources, Dr. LaPorte emphasized the regime’s strategic efforts to reinforce its stability. Reflecting on the populism theme, she argued that Azerbaijan’s case is characterized more by a disconnect between politics and the populace than by populist appeals, with citizens largely feeling unrepresented by any political party.
Dr. Ashot Aleksanyan’s presentation analyzed the impact of hybrid populism on postwar Armenia, its democratization efforts, and European integration. He employed a theoretical framework rooted in post-Soviet populist studies, drawing from definitions by scholars like Cas Mudde and Ernesto Laclau to highlight populism’s ideological and moral dimensions. Dr. Aleksanyan emphasized the unique challenges faced by Armenia, including the lack of robust political party infrastructure, weak ideological foundations, and an underdeveloped civil society, all exacerbated by the fallout from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. He identified hybrid populism as a critical factor in Armenian politics, characterized by divisive rhetoric framing issues through binary oppositions such as war versus peace, pro-Western versus pro-Russian, and democracy versus authoritarianism. He also explored the influence of external factors like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and regional pressures from Russia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, which have collectively hindered Armenia’s European integration and democratization. Using a textual analysis of political speeches and party rhetoric, Dr. Aleksanyan demonstrated how populist discourse destabilizes democratic institutions, undermines reform efforts, and fuels societal polarization. He concluded by stressing the importance of addressing Armenia’s geopolitical vulnerabilities and strengthening its political and societal structures to advance its European integration and democratic aspirations.
Dr. Nerses Kopalyan‘s presentation analyzed the limited influence of populism in post-Velvet Revolution Armenia, emphasizing the country’s democratic resilience despite its challenging geopolitical environment. He highlighted three primary factors that have curtailed populism: a robust civil society acting as a safeguard, the development of a democratic political culture, and the transitional government’s deliberate avoidance of populist rhetoric and practices. Unlike other contexts where populism thrives on anti-establishment and nationalist narratives, Armenian leaders have refrained from scapegoating elites, ethnicizing conflicts, or exploiting societal cleavages for political gain. Instead, the government has pursued pragmatic, often unpopular decisions, such as emphasizing peace and concessions, which reinforce democratic consolidation. Dr. Kopalyan contrasted Armenia’s approach with illiberal populist leaders elsewhere, noting the absence of tactics like undermining institutions, exploiting nationalism, or promoting cultural wars. He concluded that Armenia’s unique governance model, anchored in civil society, democratic norms, and a refusal to weaponize populism, has strengthened its democratization process and served as a critical component of its security architecture amid external pressures from Azerbaijan and Russia.
The panel provided critical insights into the destabilizing effects of populism and authoritarianism in the Southern Caucasus. Across the region, the confluence of weak institutions, contested sovereignty, and geopolitical pressures fosters environments where populism thrives, further undermining democratic governance and societal resilience.
The event underscored the need for targeted international engagement to bolster democratic institutions, support civil society, and promote regional cooperation. Recognizing the distinct challenges faced by each country, panelists stressed the importance of tailored strategies that address both domestic vulnerabilities and external influences.
Ivaldi, Gilles & Zankina, Emilia (Eds). (2024). 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). October 29, 2024. Brussels. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0059
Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, populism has emerged as one of the most significant global political phenomenons, deeply affecting electoral politics in democracies across the globe, both new and consolidated. In Europe, populism has become a major force, reshaping the political landscape and discourse of the European Union and most of its member states in unprecedented ways. Over the years, the impact of populist parties has been felt both at the level of domestic and European politics, increasingly putting pressure on more established mainstream parties, particularly at the right of the political spectrum.
Populism is found in different locations in the party system, predominantly at the far-left and far-right of the spectrum. All available data of populist parties illustrates the rise in support for populist, far-left, and far-right parties in Europe since the early 1990s. Such parties have made significant electoral gains in recent years. They have joined coalition governments in several countries, including Italy, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Austria, more generally reflecting the mainstreaming of their ideas and themes in party politics and public opinion.
Populist performances typically vary across parties and contexts, reflecting the complex interplay between structural and contextual factors. The electoral support for radical parties is rooted in structural factors, but their translation into electoral choice is conditioned by political discontent that originates in specific political dynamics. While contemporary populism is generally seen as a response to a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural grievances and issues, it can also be seen as an expression of political discontent largely dependent on the national political cycle and the shorter-term country-specific opportunities produced for populist mobilization.
In this context, the analysis of the European Parliament elections in June 2024 provides a unique opportunity to assess the current wave of populism across all 27 European Union (EU) member states simultaneously. With elections occurring around the same time, we can examine this wave of pan-European populism more closely and comparatively, assessing its scale, dynamics, and impact on national politics and, ultimately, on the EU. Thus, this report by the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS) examines the electoral performance and influence of populist parties in the 2024 European elections. Drawing on country-specific analyses by local experts, the report evaluates populist party performance across all EU member states and discusses the challenges populist politics pose for European institutions and the future of Europe.
The ECPS report illustrates the diversity of populism and the variety of its manifestations across the political spectrum. The current trend is one of increasing mainstreaming and normalization of populist parties as a result of a dual process of modernization and moderation by populists, on the one hand, and accommodation of populist ideas and policies by mainstream parties, on the other hand. The report see that the modernization of populist politics concerns, in particular, the moderation and blurring of those parties’ positions regarding European integration, to increase their appeal to moderate and pro-EU voters and to foster collaboration with mainstream parties.
The results of the 2024 European elections have essentially confirmed the electoral consolidation of the populist phenomenon in Europe. In 2024, these parties won 263 of the 720 seats – approximately 36%. Populists came first in the elections in six countries, with radical right populists winning in four countries, while centrist populists topped the polls in another two countries. Such results reflect the rise in support for populism in recent national elections as well as the increase in the number and geographical spread of populist parties across Europe. No less than 60 populist parties across 26 EU member states gained representation in the European Parliament in June 2024. In comparison, a total of 40 populist parties had won seats in 22 EU countries in the 2019 election.
Populist party performances varied, however, across countries and different brands of populism. The results of the 2024 European elections have essentially attested to the consolidation of the populist right, while left-wing and centrist populist parties have received comparatively less support across Europe. Moreover, the new distribution of seats should not mask distortions due to the relative weight of national representations in the European Parliament.
The 2024 European elections have delivered a new European Parliament whose centre of gravity has clearly shifted to the right and where the presence of populist actors has increased. However, these parties remain divided in the European Parliament. With a few notable exceptions, such as Fico’s SMER in Slovakia and the German BSW, parties of the populist left are all found in the Left group in the European Parliament. Right-wing populists are currently distributed across three different groups – namely, the ECR, PfE, and ESN. Some populist parties are also found among the Non-inscrits (NI). Finally, somewhat reflecting the diversity in their ideological profile, centrist populist parties are scattered across different groups, including the EPP and Renew Europe.
With the increased representation of right-wing populists in the European Parliament, the report anticipates a growing influence on political debates and policy decisions in areas such as migration, climate change, EU enlargement, and support for Ukraine. It also foresees more ad hoc coalitions on specific issues rather than cohesive positions and policy proposals. The legitimation of radical-right discourse and its impact on both European and national politics is expected to continue. While the current EP majority may effectively maintain a cordon sanitaire around both the far-right and far-left, an overall shift to the right, in both rhetoric and policy, is already evident.
Each chapter of the report provides background information about the main populist forces in the country of focus by examining their history, electoral support and political agenda. This includes populist parties across the spectrum where deemed relevant. With a focus on the 2024 European election, each country chapter looks at the ‘supply side’ of populism (i.e., the positions of populist parties towards the EU in general and vis-à-vis specific policies, such as migration and asylum, fiscal policy, the Schengen system, European citizenship and democracy, the COVID-19 pandemic, human rights, as well as external affairs, including policy towards the Russia–Ukraine and Israel–Hamas conflicts). Country analyses ask how populists used Euroscepticism, national sovereignty, ethnic culture, identity, xenophobia and religion during the 2024 EP election campaign and what their discourse was on the composition and working mechanisms of the European Parliament.
Additionally, each chapter examines the ‘demand side’ of populism by looking at how populist parties fared in the elections and which topics played a role in their success or failure. Wherever possible, the country chapters in this report provide public opinion data about critical political issues for populist voters and the characterization of crucial sociodemographics of populist voters across different parties and national contexts.
Finally, each country chapter assesses the impact of populist politics in their respective country and at the EU level (e.g., what kind of populist politics are the elected populist parties going to articulate in the EP and which may be their coalition strategy), allowing for the broader conclusions discussed in this report’s final section.
Kenes, Bulent. (2024). “Islamist Parties and Power in Democratic Nation-States: A Comparative Analysis of Six Muslim-Majority Countries.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. October 30, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0020
In “Islamist Parties and Power in Democratic Nation-States: A Comparative Analysis of Six Muslim-Majority Countries,” authors Ihsan Yilmaz and Syaza Shukri argue that Islamist parties, at their core, are political entities that prioritize practical governance over strict ideology when necessary, leaving them vulnerable to voter rejection if they fail to address economic and social issues effectively. This adaptability underscores the book’s central argument that policy efficacy often takes precedence over Islamist rhetoric, shaping the evolution of Islamist parties within democratic contexts. While it occasionally includes a wealth of historical details that may seem excessive, the book’s nuanced approach offers a valuable resource for understanding the intersections of Islamism, Islamist populism, authoritarian Islamism, and democracy on a global scale.
In the book titled Islamist Parties and Power in Democratic Nation-States: A Comparative Analysis of Six Muslim-Majority Countries, authors Ihsan Yilmaz and Syaza Shukri explore the multifaceted strategies of Islamist parties operating within democratic and semi-democratic settings across various Muslim-majority countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. The book examines how these parties adapt ideologically and pragmatically to maintain influence, highlighting a shift from traditional opposition roles to coalition-building and power-sharing with secular or non-Islamist entities. The authors underscore that while Islamist parties share a religious foundation, their approaches to governance and democracy are diverse, challenging simplistic views that position them solely as anti-democratic.
Yilmaz and Shukri aim to provide a nuanced understanding of how these parties manage power, respond to crises, and navigate issues like minority rights and foreign policy, particularly in today’s globalized and interconnected political landscape. The introduction of the book under the title of “Islamist Parties Operating in Democracies,” sets the stage by examining the multifaceted nature of Islamist movements, defining them as entities aiming to incorporate Islamic principles into political and social realms. The authors clarify that while these groups are often perceived as monolithic, they are, in fact, a “diverse array of voices” with varying ideological and strategic priorities shaped by unique regional contexts.
One key strength of the introduction is its contextual framing of Islamist parties not just as ideological entities but as pragmatic actors responsive to “evolving conditions and societal expectations.” Yilmaz and Shukri discuss how these groups, while rooted in shared religious values, exhibit adaptability by forming coalitions and engaging in “power-sharing and coalition-building” with secular or even oppositional parties, particularly when in governance roles. This approach marks a significant departure from previous literature, as the authors aim to present Islamists as dynamic participants in democratic systems rather than static opponents to democratic principles.
Furthermore, the introduction highlights the book’s comparative methodology, which sets it apart from similar works that typically focus on a single region. By juxtaposing cases from countries like Turkey, Indonesia, and Tunisia, the authors aim to draw broader insights into “the complex dynamics” of Islamist governance. Yilmaz and Shukri suggest that understanding these dynamics is crucial for a “nuanced understanding” of Islamist politics that moves beyond reductive assumptions. Thus, the introduction promises a rich comparative analysis, shedding light on the strategic adaptability of Islamist parties and their potential to balance ideological goals with pragmatic governance in diverse political settings.
Islam and Politics
In Chapter 2 which is titled “Islam and Politics in Democratic Muslim-Majority Countries,” Yilmaz and Shukri present an insightful analysis into the complexities of Islamism and its intersection with democratic politics across diverse Muslim-majority nations. By grounding the discussion in scholarly debate, they explore how Islamist movements navigate between mainstream and extremist strands and examine the adaptive strategies employed by these parties in response to their unique political environments.
The chapter explores a critical dichotomy within Islamism, distinguishing between mainstream Islamists who participate in elections and seek gradual reform through democratic means and more extremist groups that often reject democratic processes. This distinction underlines the authors’ main argument about the adaptability of Islamist parties, emphasizing that while many engage in democratic processes, others lean toward authoritarian tendencies. This adaptation, as the authors argue, is driven by both political and socio-economic pressures, shaping Islamist strategies across different contexts.
Moreover, Yilmaz and Shukri delve into the ideological tensions within Islamist politics, such as the potential for majoritarianism and religious hegemony. They caution that unchecked Islamism could risk eroding minority rights and compromising democratic principles, especially in polarized societies. The authors support this claim by discussing the experience of Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), where populist tendencies and majoritarianism have raised concerns about the preservation of democratic institutions.
Finally, the chapter addresses the broader implications of Islamist governance and the complex role of political Islam. By examining case studies in countries like Tunisia, Indonesia, and Morocco, the authors provide a robust framework for understanding how Islamist parties balance religious principles with governance. This nuanced examination makes Chapter 2 a foundational overview for readers, highlighting both the potential and challenges of Islamism within democratic contexts.
PAS and Malaysia
In Chapter 3, Yilmaz and Shukri provide a comprehensive examination of Malaysia’s Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) under the title of “Seven Decades of PAS in Malaysian Politics,” tracing its strategic evolution across the nation’s politically complex landscape. The authors explore PAS’ adaptability and pragmatism within Malaysia’s semi-democratic environment, highlighting how PAS has shifted from conservatism to moderate pluralism and, recently, to ethno-religious populism.
The chapter outlines PAS’ historical journey, from its foundation in 1951 as an offshoot of UMNO, focused on Malay-Muslim identity, to its modern status as a dominant Islamist party. PAS’ relationship with UMNO, marked by both rivalry and cooperation, underscores the party’s flexibility. The authors note that PAS has shifted between opposing UMNO’s secular nationalism and forming alliances under banners of “Muslim unity,” depending on political needs. Yilmaz and Shukri point to PAS’ success in adapting its ideology to suit changing political climates, illustrating its willingness to collaborate across the political spectrum for electoral gains.
According to the book, PAS’ governance of Kelantan since 1990 serves as a case study in implementing an Islamist agenda within a multicultural society. Despite advocating for “shariazation” policies, PAS has shown restraint at the federal level, balancing Islamic values with the realities of Malaysia’s diverse demographics. This pragmatic approach, the authors argue, has allowed PAS to maintain its influence, especially during its brief time in federal power from 2020-2022.
Further, the authors discuss PAS’ strategic response to global and national crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which bolstered its populist appeal through welfare measures. Yilmaz and Shukri conclude that PAS’ electoral flexibility and populist tactics have solidified its position among conservative Malay-Muslims, marking it as a key player in Malaysia’s evolving political landscape. The chapter demonstrates how PAS’ resilience and adaptability, despite operating within Malaysia’s semi-authoritarian framework, have contributed to its growing strength in Malaysian politics.
PKS and Indonesia
Chapter 4 of the book offers a nuanced analysis of Islamism within Indonesia’s multiparty political system under the title of “PKS in Indonesia’s Multiparty System,” by spotlighting the evolution of the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) and its role as a major Islamist party. The chapter contextualizes PKS within Indonesia’s post-1998 democratization efforts, focusing on how the nation’s rich cultural diversity and democratic constitution impact the moderation of Islamist agendas. Yilmaz and Shukri highlight PKS’s pragmatic approach, noting its blend of Islamic values with democratic ideals as it navigates Indonesia’s secular and religious pluralism.
The authors emphasize that PKS has achieved influence without strictly seeking to impose sharia law, contrasting with more radical movements like Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI). PKS’s stance on social justice, anti-corruption, and minority rights demonstrates a commitment to Indonesia’s Pancasila foundation, balancing Islamic identity with pluralist values. This adaptability has allowed PKS to participate in coalition governments while maintaining a distinct Islamist identity.
The chapter also explores PKS’s responses to regional and global Islamist trends, highlighting that PKS favors a moderate stance on Islamic solidarity, promoting peaceful international relations and opposing extremist ideologies. However, as the authors note, PKS faces rising pressures from conservative Islamic populism, which challenges Indonesia’s secular state model. They point to the complex balancing act of PKS as it negotiates between religious values and national priorities amid Indonesia’s diverse electorate.
Chapter 4 presents PKS as an example of Islamist pragmatism within a democratic framework, stressing its role in maintaining Indonesia’s status as a moderate Muslim-majority nation. The analysis showcases PKS’s strategic positioning within Indonesia’s political landscape, where moderation often proves more sustainable than radicalism.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan
In Chapter 5 of the book, authors Yilmaz and Shukri provide an in-depth exploration of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), one of Pakistan’s most influential Islamist parties. This chapter, which is titled “A Faithful Force: Jamaat-E-Islami and Islamist Politics in Pakistan,” examines JI’s evolution from a supporter of military regimes to a unique voice advocating social development within an Islamic framework. Describing JI as a “faithful force,” the authors highlight the party’s struggle to reconcile its foundational principles with the realities of ‘Pakistani democracy,’ illustrating both its successes and limitations in influencing national politics.
Initially, JI supported Pakistan’s military leadership, particularly during General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime, which advanced the Islamization process in Pakistan. The authors emphasize how JI’s alliance with Zia enabled it to push for Islamic laws, giving JI a rare moment of influence. However, as the chapter reveals, JI’s strict Islamist stance limited its broader appeal, especially as it encountered Pakistan’s diverse political landscape and increasing calls for pluralism.
Yilmaz and Shukri delve into JI’s organizational structure, describing it as both a strength and a “double-edged sword.” JI’s internal hierarchy, according to the authors, deeply rooted in discipline and loyalty, provides a solid foundation, yet its rigid framework hinders adaptability. Despite its “commitment to democratic principles” and holding intra-party elections, JI has struggled to expand its influence beyond its core supporters, often failing to capture significant electoral success on a national level.
The authors explore JI’s stance on the controversial blasphemy law and its impact on Pakistan’s democracy, particularly in relation to minority rights. JI’s call for the law’s strict enforcement has complicated its image, as it aligns the party with hardline interpretations of Islam that conflict with Pakistan’s aspirations for a more inclusive society. While JI advocates for “social justice, anti-corruption, and anti-imperialism,” its approach has been criticized for not sufficiently addressing the needs of Pakistan’s minority communities, a factor that limits its broader political appeal.
In discussing JI’s ideological adaptability, the authors argue that JI has recently shifted towards a “second-generation Islamism,” with an emphasis on social development and community welfare. The chapter notes JI’s active involvement in charitable work through its Al-Khidmat Foundation, an outreach strategy that has helped it maintain influence despite its limited political successes. This evolution highlights JI’s pragmatic side, as it aligns its goals with broader social issues while retaining an Islamic identity.
Yilmaz and Shukri conclude that JI’s trajectory exemplifies Pakistan’s complex relationship with Islam and democracy, where Islamist parties face the challenge of preserving religious identity while adapting to democratic norms. They suggest that while JI has struggled to secure a dominant political position, it remains a potent force due to its strong organizational base and grassroots support. Ultimately, Chapter 5 sheds light on the “delicate balance” between faith-based politics and the realities of Pakistan’s evolving democratic landscape.
PJD and Morocco
In Chapter 6, titled “Islamist PJD and the Monarchy in Morocco,” the authors delve into the dynamics between Morocco’s monarchy and the Justice and Development Party (PJD), focusing on Morocco’s unique Makhzen system. This system, led by the king as emir al-mu’minin or “commander of the faithful,” establishes him as both a secular and religious authority, allowing the monarchy to manage Islam as an integral part of Morocco’s national identity. The chapter emphasizes how this framework has been crucial in tempering “the potency of political Islamism” and limiting the PJD’s influence, even as it formed a government following its 2011 electoral success.
The chapter examines the PJD’s decade in power, a tenure punctuated by moments of compromise and concession. Initially, the party enjoyed significant popular support, riding the wave of Arab Spring reforms that included expanded parliamentary power. However, as the chapter illustrates, the PJD quickly encountered the limits of its influence. The authors highlight how the monarchy’s interventions in key government functions, especially in “sensitive roles and veto powers,” underscored the persistence of monarchical authority, often stifling the PJD’s ability to implement its agenda fully.
The COVID-19 pandemic further strained the PJD’s position, contributing to its electoral decline in 2021 and symbolizing the end of its era of Islamist governance in Morocco. This chapter argues that the monarchy’s symbolic Islamic leadership, combined with its political authority, successfully framed itself as the true custodian of Moroccan identity, relegating the PJD to “a second-generation Islamist party forced to work within the system.” This analysis reveals that the PJD’s journey reflects the complex interplay of religious and political authority in Morocco, where Islam is strategically woven into the fabric of governance, ultimately ensuring that power remains centered in the monarchy.
Ennahda and Tunisia
Chapter 7, titled “Ennahda as Tunisia’s Muslim Democratic Party,” delves into the rise, evolution, and challenges faced by Tunisia’s Ennahda party, highlighting its remarkable adaptability within the country’s political landscape. Initially, Ennahda emerged from Tunisia’s conservative Muslim roots, but, in the wake of the Arab Spring, it evolved into what the authors describe as Tunisia’s “Muslim Democratic Party.” This transformation underscores Ennahda’s pragmatism and its attempt to blend religious principles with democratic ideals. After winning Tunisia’s first democratic elections in 2011, Ennahda adapted its stance to suit a diverse political landscape, opting for “a practical kind of national reconciliation”with secular parties, which became crucial for political stability.
The authors highlight Ennahda’s ideological moderation, particularly when it decided not to impose Sharia as the foundation of the 2014 constitution. This choice, according to Yilmaz and Shukri, reflected Ennahda’s understanding of “the importance of Maqasid al-Sharia over specific rules,” showcasing the party’s evolving position on Islamic law to resonate with a broader national identity. The shift was further reinforced during the 2016 Tenth General Congress, where Ennahda officially prioritized politics over religious preaching, effectively becoming “a conservative political force capable of handling governance.”
The chapter also sheds light on the recent strain in Tunisian democracy, exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, which impacted Ennahda’s reputation and led to widespread disapproval. Ennahda’s subsequent absence from the 2023 elections reflects a shift in its strategy, possibly spurred by President Kais Saied’s consolidation of power. In sum, Chapter 7 paints a nuanced picture of Ennahda’s transformation and challenges, illustrating its continued struggle between ideological values and the demands of a pragmatic political approach in Tunisia’s ever-shifting political terrain.
AKP and Turkey
Titled “Islamist Populist AKP and Turkey’s Shift Towards Authoritarianism,” Chapter 8 of the book presents an in-depth analysis of Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, exploring its journey from “Muslim democrat” roots to an authoritarian populist regime. Initially, the AKP championed democratization, economic reform, and EU membership; however, its trajectory shifted post-2011, notably after the “Gezi protests of 2013” and the controversial 2016 coup attempt. These events, according to the authors, paved the way for a clampdown on dissent, particularly targeting journalists, activists, and opposition politicians, marking a stark turn towards authoritarianism.
Erdogan’s leadership has progressively consolidated power, transforming Turkey’s democratic infrastructure into what the authors describe as a “competitive authoritarian regime.” With the 2017 constitutional referendum, the office of the prime minister was abolished, granting the president sweeping executive powers, leading one observer to note that “Erdogan [became] the virtually unassailable ruler of Turkey.” By diminishing checks on presidential authority, Erdogan’s AKP harnessed Islam and nationalism to foster a narrative that secures his base while casting opposition voices as foreign-controlled threats to national unity.
In this chapter, Yilmaz and Shukri also examine the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), highlighting its instrumental role in promoting the AKP’s vision of Islam as a component of Turkish identity. This vision extends internationally, where Turkey navigates a complex geopolitical landscape. According to the authors, through selective alliances, including with Russia and China, the AKP leverages religious and nationalist rhetoric to mitigate Western criticism, particularly regarding human rights issues. Yet, its economic policies, based on unorthodox monetary approaches, have led to high inflation and decreased living standards. The authors note that Erdogan’s insistence on low-interest rates, justified by Islamic teachings against usury, has led to what the text calls an “accelerated currency devaluation” that further strains Turkey’s economy.
In sum, Chapter 8 paints the AKP as a party that, while initially promising democratic reform, has instead pursued populist authoritarianism. This has strained Turkey’s democratic structures and polarized its society, positioning Erdogan as a powerful, divisive figure whose policies reflect both the aspirations and challenges of modern Turkish Islamism.
Trajectory of Islamist Parties
In Chapter 9, the authors overview “Trajectory of Islamist Parties” and synthesize the book’s key findings, examining how various Islamist parties navigate the balance between Islamism and democracy. The chapter delves into how Islamist parties, when allowed political participation, engage in governance yet often struggle with the tension between God’s sovereignty and popular sovereignty. This complex relationship has led to a diversity of outcomes, ranging from authoritarian shifts in Turkey under the AKP to democratic engagement in Malaysia, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The authors highlight the significance of “strategic interaction theory,” which suggests that an Islamist party’s moderation is contingent upon its relationships with secular forces and the military. “Credibility of signals sent by the Islamist party” is crucial in establishing trust with non-Islamist actors, although, as in the AKP’s case, prolonged power can erode democratic practices. The chapter notes that the AKP’s “immoderation was the result of dismantling institutional checks and balances” due to political crises like the Gezi protests and the 2016 coup attempt.
Through comparative analysis, the authors argue that some Islamist parties adapt to electoral losses, as seen in Tunisia and Morocco, where they have “accepted defeat albeit with some resistance.” However, once in power, these parties tend to favor pragmatism over strict adherence to religious principles to sustain governance. This adaptability is essential, particularly in Muslim-majority secular states like Indonesia, where the “balance between Islamic identity and democratic diversity” is necessary for political survival.
The authors suggest in brief that Islamist parties are, at their core, political entities that prioritize practical governance over ideology when necessary, making them susceptible to voter rejection if they fail to deliver on economic and social issues. This adaptability underscores the book’s central argument that policy efficacy outweighs Islamist rhetoric, shaping the evolution of Islamist parties within democratic frameworks. While it occasionally includes abundance of historical details that may seem excessive, the book’s nuanced approach provides an insightful resource for understanding the intersections of Islamism, Islamist populism, authoritarian Islamism and democracy on a global scale.
Ihsan Yilmaz & Syaza Shukri. (2024). Islamist Parties and Power in Democratic Nation-States: A Comparative Analysis of Six Muslim-Majority Countries. Palgrave Macmillan. 313 pp. Hardcover: EUR 139.09. ISBN-10: 9819743427, ISBN-13: 978-9819743421.
Please cite as: Ivaldi, Gilles & Zankina, Emilia. (2024). “Introduction: The ECPS Project ‘Populism and the European Parliament Elections 2024’.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0060
This report analyzes the performances and impact of populist parties in the 2024 European elections. Drawing from the analyses of country experts, we provide an account of how populist parties across the spectrum performed in each of the EU’s 27 member states, looking at the campaign, issues and demand for populist politics in each country separately and the challenges that populist party success more broadly bears for the future of the EU. In this introductory chapter, we briefly define populism, provide a topographic map of populist parties across all EU member states ahead of the 2024 European elections, and review the main drivers of populism identified in the literature. We then turn more specifically to the general context and outcome of the 2024 EP election, assessing the hypothesis of another ‘populist wave’ while also looking back at the 2019 election to compare populist party success over time.
By Gilles Ivaldi*(Sciences Po Paris–CNRS (CEVIPOF), France) & Emilia Zankina* (Temple University, Rome, Italy)
Introduction
Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, populism has emerged as one of the most significant global political phenomenons, deeply affecting electoral politics in democracies across the globe, both new and consolidated (Moffit, 2017; De la Torre, 2019). In Europe, populism has become a major force, reshaping the political landscape and discourse of the European Union and most of its member states in unprecedented ways. Over the years, the impact of populist parties has been felt both at the level of domestic and European politics, increasingly putting pressure on more established mainstream parties, particularly at the right of the political spectrum (FEPS, 2024).
Populism is found in different locations in the party system, predominantly at the far left and far right of the spectrum (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018). The PopuList database of populist parties illustrates the rise in support for populist, far-left, and far-right parties in Europe since the early 1990s (see Figure 1). Such parties have made significant electoral gains in recent years. They have joined coalition governments in several countries, including Italy, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Austria, more generally reflecting the mainstreaming of their ideas and themes in party politics and public opinion (Muldoon & Herman, 2018; Schwörer, 2021; Bale & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2021).
Populist performances typically vary across parties and contexts, reflecting the complex interplay between structural and contextual factors. As Kriesi and Schulte-Cloos (2020) show, electoral support for radical parties is rooted in structural factors, but their translation into electoral choice is conditioned by political discontent that originates in specific political dynamics. While contemporary populism is generally seen as a response to a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural grievances and issues (Norris & Inglehart, 2019; Guriev & Papaioannou, 2020; Rodrik, 2021), it can also be seen as an expression of political discontent largely dependent on the national political cycle and the shorter-term country-specific opportunities produced for populist mobilization.
The analysis of the European Parliament elections of June 2024 thus provides a unique opportunity to simultaneously assess the current wave of populism across all 27 European Union (EU) member states. With European Parliament (EP) elections all taking place at about the same time, we can look more closely and comparatively at the current wave of pan-European populism, its size, dynamics and impact on national polities and, ultimately, on the EU.
This report analyzes the performances and impact of populist parties in the 2024 European elections. Drawing from the analyses of country experts, we provide an account of how populist parties across the spectrum performed in each of the EU’s 27 member states, looking at the campaign, issues and demand for populist politics in each country separately and the challenges that populist party success more broadly bears for the future of the EU.
In this introductory chapter, we briefly define populism, provide a topographic map of populist parties across all EU member states ahead of the 2024 European elections, and review the main drivers of populism identified in the literature. We then turn more specifically to the general context and outcome of the 2024 EP election, assessing the hypothesis of another ‘populist wave’ while also looking back at the 2019 election to compare populist party success over time.
Mapping European populism(s)
Mudde (2004) defines populism as a ‘thin-centered ideology’ that ‘considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’. Populist parties champion the cause of the ‘common man’ against what is perceived as a detached and self-serving political elite. While there are other ontological approaches to populism – e.g., political discourse (Laclau, 2005), political strategy (Weyland, 2001), and performance (Ostiguy et al., 2020) – these different traditions of research generally converge towards the same common essential attributes underpinning populism (Olivas Osuna, 2021). Moreover, the ideational approach allows one to connect the supply and demand side of populism and to study the diversity of its manifestations across Europe.
In the European political landscape, populism manifests itself in a variety of parties across the political spectrum, from left to right (Ivaldi et al., 2017; Taggart & Pirro, 2021). In Eastern and Central Europe, populism may also be found across a range of ‘centrist’ anti-establishment parties located inside and outside the mainstream (Hanley & Sikk, 2016). Such diversity is shown in Table 1, which provides an overview of the leading populist parties in the current European political landscape.
Table 1 illustrates the diversity of populism. Overall, there were about 90 populist parties across all EU member states on the eve of the 2024 European election, with varying ideological profiles, backgrounds and electoral sizes. Essentially, populism was found both left and right of the European political spectrum, as well as at its centre, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
On the radical right, populism is typically combined with exclusionary nativism and authoritarianism, whereby the people and the elite are primarily defined along cultural lines (Mudde, 2007). Radical-right populist parties essentialize migration not only in their nativist rhetoric but also portray it with terrorism and crime, and in this way, it is put forward as a security issue, as was the case during the Paris and Brussels attacks in 2015–2016 (Mudde, 2019). Such populism is found in parties like France’s National Rally (RN), Lega (formerly Lega Nord) and Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia, FdI) in Italy, and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). The nativist and authoritarian ideology of the PRR is also found in ‘radicalized’ conservative parties such as Poland’s Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) and Hungary’s Fidesz, which have turned to a populist radical right strategy over time (Buštíková, 2017: 575).
The populist radical left has, on the other hand, a universalistic profile embracing a more socially inclusive notion of the people, who are essentially pitted against the economic elites (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018; Lisi et al., 2019). In Europe, left-wing populism has been particularly electorally successful in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis (Katsambekis & Kioupkiolis, 2020). Economic issues, bailouts, and austerity programs were the main driving forces behind a transformation of the radical left emphasizing distributive issues in Eurosceptic populist directions (Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro & Plaza-Colodro, 2018).Parties such as the Spanish Podemos, SYRIZA in Greece, or Germany’s Die Linke (The Left) are examples of this phenomenon. In those countries, however, there has been a decline in the electoral support for parties of the populist left since 2019 (Ivaldi, 2020).
Finally, in CEE, populism often manifests itself in the form of ‘centrist’ anti-establishment parties (Učeň, 2007; Hanley & Sikk, 2016). Such parties operate in the more volatile party system of the former Communist bloc, where political instability is a long-term phenomenon. They focus on challenging the existing political elite and fighting corruption, and they can be found across the entire political spectrum, both within and outside the ideological mainstream (Engler et al., 2019). This type of populism is found in parties such as Slovakia’s Ordinary People and Independents (OL’aNO), the movement of Paweł Kukiz (Kukiz) in Poland and Change Continues (Prodalzhavame Promyanata, PP) in Bulgaria. Looking more specifically at the Czech Republic, Havlík (2019) sees the rise of the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens 2011 (ANO 2011) as a case of ‘centrist technocratic populism’ based on a denial of political pluralism, anti-partyism, resistance to constitutionalism and the embrace of majoritarianism. In Western Europe, the Italian M5S has been seen as a case of ‘centrist populism’, which does not display the typical ideological profile (Mosca & Tronconi, 2019; Pirro & Van Kessel, 2018).
The populism-Euroscepticism nexus
Given their inherent anti-elite and anti-established stance, populist parties in the European context are also often Eurosceptic. Kneuer (2018) emphasizes such a ‘tandem’ of populism and Euroscepticism as one unifying feature of all successful populist parties in Europe, reflecting in her view the formation of a new transnational cleavage cross-cutting the traditional left-right axis.
A recent study examining parties in 30 European countries from 2018 to 2024 (Szczerbiak & Taggart 2024) finds 77 parties to be both Eurosceptic and anti-establishment. Szczerbiak and Taggart argue that the growth of European integration and its association with a series of crises, such as migration, the Eurozone, Brexit and COVID-19, has bred discontent that fostered anti-establishment positions and the demonization of the EU. At the same time, the study found clusters of parties that are anti-establishment but not Eurosceptic and parties that are Eurosceptic but not anti-establishment, arguing that the link is not always straightforward.
Meijers and Zaslove (2021) also examine populist parties’ positions towards European integration, similarly arguing for a nuanced picture, with some populist parties rejecting the EU outright while others are taking a reformist position. According to their study, populist parties such as the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD), the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Golden Dawn in Greece and Lega in Italy are highly Eurosceptic. Populist left parties, on the other hand, tend to be more moderate, with the Five Star Movement (M5S) being moderately Eurosceptic and Podemos and SYRIZA having moderate pro-EU positions.
Similarly, Pirro, Taggart and Kessel (2018) find differences between left- and right-wing variants of populist Euroscepticism. Examining the economic and financial crisis (the ‘Great Recession’), the migrant crisis and Brexit, they find left-wing populists attacking the EU’s ‘neoliberal’ agenda and austerity measures, while right-wing populists criticizing the EU on account of increased immigration and multiculturalism. Brexit, on the other hand, is portrayed ‘by various kinds of populist parties as a victory for the ordinary people against unresponsive elites and a rejection of the undemocratic and technocratic decision-making process at the EU level’ (Pirro, Taggart and Van Kessel, 2018). While Euroscepticism is not limited to populist parties alone, neither are all populist parties Eurosceptic. We see a strong correlation between anti-EU positions and populist parties, which is more pronounced to the right than to the left.
More recently, however, there has been a moderating shift in populist Eurosceptic politics both left and right of the spectrum. In the wake of the Brexit referendum of 2016, many populist parties have strategically abandoned their previous plans to drop the Euro or leave the EU altogether, turning to more nuanced or ambiguous positions vis-à-vis European integration in order to increase their appeal to moderate and pro-EU voters, and to collaborate with mainstream parties. As Van Kessel et al. (2020) note, the difficulties in the Brexit process may have dampened public demand for leaving the EU elsewhere in Europe, thus reducing the viability of ‘exit strategies’. Other studies suggest that populist parties, particularly of the radical right, have been shying away from hard Eurosceptic positions. Right-wing nationalist populist parties have adopted ‘alt-Europe’ counternarratives reflecting ‘a conservative, xenophobic intergovernmental vision of a European “community of sovereign states”, “strong nations” or “fatherlands”, that abhors the EU’s “centralized” United States of Europe’ (McMahon, 2021: 10). ‘Taking back control from Brussels’ has been observed to be a common stand of radical right-wing populist parties on the way to the 2024 EP elections (Braun & Reinl, 2023).
As McDonnell and Werner (2018) argue, populist radical right parties ‘remain flexible to perform significant shifts’ on the issue of European integration because of its relatively limited salience. The dampening of their Euroscepticism by populist parties may also be associated with office-seeking strategies. As Ivaldi (2018b) suggests, in the case of the French FN, governmental credibility and coalition potential have been two strong incentives for the FN to tone down its Euroscepticism since the 2017 presidential election.
Drivers of populism: structural and short-term factors
The economic crises of the past decade, coupled with the perceived threats posed by globalization and immigration, have created circumstances that allow for a surge in populist sentiments across various European nations. Populism, characterized by a general distrust towards traditional political institutions and an increasing polarization of society, is fuelled by a complex interplay of socioeconomic, cultural and political factors (Norris & Inglehart, 2019; Guriev & Papaioannou, 2020; Rodrik, 2021).
Different varieties of populism operate on different types of grievances and issues across the economic and cultural dimensions of electoral competition, however. Socioeconomic issues have traditionally been identified as critical factors of left-wing populism at both the party and the voter level (Charalambous & Ioannou, 2019) and have become increasingly relevant for right-wing populist parties since the 2008 financial crisis (Ibsen, 2019; Guriev & Papaioannou, 2020; Rodrik, 2021). Immigration has long been identified by research as a critical issue for populist radical right parties, and it is typically associated with authoritarian views of society (Mudde, 2007).
While sharing similar populist attitudes, populist voters diverge when it comes to the host ideologies to which their populism is attached (Van Hauwaert & Van Kessel, 2018). Populist radical right voters are primarily concerned with cultural issues of immigration and law and order and show stronger nativist and authoritarian attitudes. Voters on the populist radical left tend to embrace more egalitarian and universalistic values while often supporting a libertarian agenda on social issues. Finally, centrist populist voters exhibit strong anti-establishment attitudes and are primarily characterized by protest voting but do not generally show the nationalist attitudes found in right-wing populism (Ivaldi, 2020; 2021). Such parties in CEE often take an anticorruption stance, making this the focus of their electoral appeal (Haughton, Neudorfer & Zankina, 2024).
As Kriesi and Schulte-Cloos (2020) demonstrated, the effect of these different sets of long-term, structural determinants is also conditioned by short-term political discontent, most notably when populist parties are in opposition. Such short-term factors are particularly relevant to studying populism in European elections. EP elections are generally considered ‘second-order elections’ (Reif & Schmitt, 1980). That is, citizens give more weight to national elections than European ones on a range of different variables: political trust, interest in politics, attachment and complexity of politics. In European elections: (a) voters tend to trust national institutions instead of European ones; (b) they have a stronger connection to their own nation rather than the EU, and; (c) they think that European politics is too difficult to grasp and that domestic issues are more compelling than European ones (Braun, 2021).
Looking at party-level data from all European elections between 1979 and 2019, Ehin and Talving (2021) find that the second-order election model continues to wield significant explanatory power, with lower participation rates in EP elections compared with first-order national elections and incumbency being associated with electoral losses in most EP election years.
Because of the increasing politicization of European integration, however, the viability of the second-order election model has been called into question, reflecting the growing salience and resonance of EU-related issues in mass politics and party competition (Hutter et al., 2016). The recent analysis of EU issue voting in the 2019 EP election by Goldberg et al. (2024) concludes that such issues matter for all EP political groups under scrutiny (both mainstream and more radical), which speaks against the idea of conditional mobilization by Eurosceptic parties.
Moreover, while Ehin and Talving (2021) see the ‘second-order type as constituting a base for a fragmented parliament with a strong representation of populist and extremist parties, other studies, such as Wondreys (2023), find only limited evidence for a boost in electoral support for extreme parties in European elections. This finding is particularly salient when considering the size of those parties and their changing role and status in European party systems. As Wondreys (2023: 7) argues: ‘[G]iven the overall increase in size, the role of many extreme parties in their respective party systems may have changed…. Voters already vote for these parties in [first-order elections], and thus have fewer incentives to subsequently vote for them in [second-order elections] as well.’
At the same time, several European countries held elections at multiple levels concurrently from 7–9 June 2024. These included Belgium, which held federal elections alongside European Parliament elections; Bulgaria, which held another early national parliamentary election on the same date as the EP one; and several countries that held local elections alongside the European ones (i.e., Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Malta and Romania). In these cases, we can expect to see European issues merge, rendered secondary or disappear altogether as domestic issues take precedence.
Looking back at the 2019 EP elections
The 2019 EP elections took place in the wake of the migration crisis shaped by an unprecedented refugee flow to European countries, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, which peaked in 2014–2016. The crisis fed into the populist parties’ Eurosceptic, nativist and nationalist narratives, which were even embraced by mainstream parties (Mudde 2019; Capozzi et al., 2023; Rodi et al., 2023). With the associated cultural sensitivities and economic, social and demographic concerns, European public interest has always been high in the political discourses on migration. In this sense, how the EU managed the refugee influx stood at the heart of discussions between 2015 and 2019. In parallel with Eurosceptic and populist concerns around European integration and migration, the economic agenda remained prominent during the 2019 EP election (Braun & Schafer, 2022). Finally, Brexit remained an important issue, serving as a benchmark of evaluation for citizens to reflect on the benefits of European membership to their own countries (Hobolt et al., 2022). In this regard, debates on the legitimacy of supranational governance, as heightened in the framework of sovereignty, were the most exploited narrative by populists against the EU (Ruzza and Pejovic 2019).
However, the predicted surge in support for populism did not fully materialize in the 2019 EP elections (Ivaldi, 2020). Despite a slowdown of economic activity, the economic context was somewhat less favourable to populist mobilization, as unemployment and inflation remained relatively low across much of Europe. Meanwhile, the impact of the EU migration crisis that had fuelled support for right-wing nationalist populists seemed to wane: economic issues dominated the 2019 European election agenda, together with climate change and promoting human rights and democracy, while immigration ranked fifth (European Parliament, 2019).
Moreover, in a context of high political uncertainty, polls showed more substantial support for the EU across member states. In the Spring 2019 Eurobarometer survey, 61% of EU citizens said that EU membership was good for their country, a figure at its highest since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (Eurobarometer, 2019). Meanwhile, interest in the election was much higher than in 2014, and voter turnout increased in 20 of the then-28 EU member states, most substantially in countries such as Poland (+22 percentage points), Romania (+19), Spain (+17), Austria (+15), and Hungary (+14).
In the 2019 elections, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) lost their majority for the first time since 1979, securing 182 and 154 seats, respectively. A significant number of voters dissatisfied with Europe’s ruling grand coalition turned to the Greens and Liberals. The Greens won a total of 74 seats, making significant gains in Western European countries such as Germany, France, Ireland and the UK. Pro-EU liberals secured 108 seats, which made Renew Europe the third largest group in the European Parliament.
Meanwhile, populist parties rose to a total of 241 seats, representing about a third (32%) of all 751 seats in the European Parliament at the time, as opposed to 211 seats (28%) five years earlier. However, the election showed mixed performances for populist party families across EU member states.
The outcome essentially confirmed the electoral consolidation of the populist right: together, these parties won 168 seats in 2019 – their best result ever – compared with 131 seats five years earlier. Support for right-wing populist parties significantly rose in Italy, Germany, Spain, Estonia, Sweden and Belgium and they dominated the polls in countries such as France, Italy and the UK. In Italy, Matteo Salvini’s Lega was the big election winner, with 34.3% of the vote compared with only 6.2% in 2014. The National Rally (RN, formerly Front National) topped the polls in France with 23.3% of the vote. In the UK, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party made an impressive breakthrough with 30.5% of the vote, taking over as the main Eurosceptic outfit, a role formerly held by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).
In Eastern Europe, ruling conservative parties consolidated electorally: in Poland, Law and Justice (PiS) won 45.4% of the vote, increasing its previous support by 13.6%; in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz dominated the polls with no less than 52.6%. Smaller, extreme right-wing parties also made gains in Greece and Slovakia. In Greece, Golden Dawn retained two of its previous four seats. In Slovakia, the neo-nazi People’s Party Our Slovakia (L’SNS), headed by Marian Kotleba, won 12.2% of the vote and two seats. In Cyprus, the National Popular Front (ELAM) increased its support to 8.3% (+5.6 percentage points) but failed to secure one of the island’s six seats in the European Parliament.
In contrast, there was a significant drop in support for the populist left, from 43 seats in 2014 to 37 in the 2019 election. Left-wing populist parties had made substantial gains in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, particularly in countries such as Greece and Spain, hit hardest by austerity policies (see Kriesi & Pappas, 2015: 23). In the 2014 elections, the populist radical left surged in Greece, Spain and Ireland and such parties made significant inroads in Portugal, Italy and France (Hernández & Kriesi, 2016). In 2019, against the backdrop of a timid economic recovery and lower unemployment, these parties lost ground across most EU member states, most notably in countries like Greece, Spain and France. In Eastern and Central Europe, the populist left remained relatively marginal electorally.
Finally, in 2019, centrist populist parties secured 32 of their previous 33 seats. Centrist populists lost momentum in countries of the former Communist bloc, such as Latvia, where Who Owns the State? (KPV) collapsed to less than 1% of the vote, as opposed to their 14.3% showing in the 2018 national elections. In Estonia, the Estonian Centre Party (EK) fell by 8.6%. In the Czech Republic, the governing ANO and its highly controversial leader, Andrej Babiš, took just 21.2% of the vote, down 8.4 percentage points from its previous result. In Bulgaria, electoral support for the ruling GERB fell by 2 percentage points, although Boïko Borissov’s party remained the most potent force in Bulgarian politics with 30.9% of the European election vote. Centrist populist parties also performed badly in Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania and Croatia. In Western Europe, the Five Star Movement (M5S) was the biggest loser of the 2019 Italian EP election, losing 15.6% compared to the 2018 national election.
With a specific reference to Euroscepticism, the 2019 elections were a real success. In almost all member states, except Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Romania, anti-EU movements won seats. The 2019 elections formed a parliament where more than 28% of MEPs belonged to populist or Eurosceptic parties (Treib, 2021: 177).
The context of the 2024 EP elections
The 2024 EP elections were held in a context characterized by the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about the EU’s handling of migration and refugee issues, the deteriorating economic situation and inflation crisis in member countries, security challenges posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the newly erupted Israeli–Hamas war in the Middle East.
The EU faced unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis and is still dealing with its economic and social consequences. It adopted a €750 billion recovery fund called NextGenerationEU to support member states’ recovery efforts. However, the implementation of this fund was delayed by political disputes and legal challenges, potentially fuelling political discontent – an issue that also carried onto the 2024 EP elections.
Concerning migration and asylum policy reform, the EU has been struggling to find a common approach to address the influx of migrants and asylum seekers, especially from Africa and the Middle East. The current system, based on the Dublin Regulation, has been criticized for putting too much pressure on the frontline states, such as Greece, Italy and Spain and for failing to ensure solidarity and responsibility-sharing among member states. To address this, the European Commission proposed a new pact on migration and asylum to create a more balanced and comprehensive framework for managing migration flows (European Commission, 2024). The proposal took a long time to go through the necessary legislative process due to the opposition from some member states, such as Hungary, Poland and Austria, who rejected mandatory relocation quotas and favoured stricter border controls.
Challenges were not limited to domestic issues; the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a litmus test for the common foreign and security policy of the Union. The EU was confronted with a deteriorating security situation in Eastern Europe as Russia intensified its military aggression against Ukraine and threatened to cut off gas supplies to Europe. The EU imposed sanctions on Russia, but disagreement elicited among the member states on the extent of support and related issues like grain imports from Ukraine. The ECPS report on the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on populism in Europe concluded that populist radical right parties exploited the war as an opportunity to voice their anti-EU rhetoric with sovereigntist arguments. In this vein, their common stance towards the sanctions had been hesitancy and scepticism, illustrating them as not really in line with economic and security-related national interests (Ivaldi & Zankina, 2023).
Furthermore, the recent terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel and the subsequent outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war bore high risks not only for the Middle East but also for other parts of the world, including Europe. Considering the heavy historical and political baggage the Israeli-Palestinian conflict held, it seemed like a convenient topic to be exploited by populist parties ahead of the elections. Instances such as the terrorist attack in Brussels, in which two Swedish citizens were killed in the days after the start of the war, provided room for populists’ rhetoric in the form of xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-migration.
However, this ‘polycrisis’ was expected to play out differently in each country. The survey by Krastev and Leonard (2024a), which was conducted in September and October 2023 in 11 European countries (Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Switzerland), suggests that the crises of the economy, security, health, climate and migration, have created distinct political responses and opinions across Europe. While immigration was the key issue in Germany, France and Denmark, people in other European countries identified climate change as the most important crisis. Italians and Portuguese, in turn, pointed to global economic turmoil, while in Spain, Great Britain and Romania, the COVID-19 pandemic was the principal issue. Estonians, Poles and Danes considered the war in Ukraine to be the most serious of crises.
In such context, the 2024 European elections represented a crucial test for both the EU and national governments, as voters would evaluate their handling of the pandemic and the recovery and how they planned to address the long-term challenges of climate change, digital transformation, and social cohesion (Bassot, 2023).
However, public opinion data showed relatively positive views toward the Union among EU citizens. Trust in the EU has increased by 6 percentage points since 2019 and now stands at 49%. The perception of the situation of the European economy has improved since autumn 2023, with 47% of respondents rating it as ‘good’, the highest level since 2019. Nearly two-thirds (62%) also said they were optimistic about the future of the EU, which is a slight increase (+4 percentage points) compared to five years earlier. Feelings of being ‘citizens of the EU’ dominated for 74% of the respondents, the highest level in over two decades. Meanwhile, a majority of respondents said they were satisfied with the way democracy works in their country (58%) and in the EU (57%) (Eurobarometer, 2024).
An anticipated rise in support for right-wing populists across the EU
Populist parties have gained traction in recent years, reflecting a broader trend of rising populism across the continent. This surge in popularity has been particularly noticeable among right-leaning populist parties (Ivaldi & Torner, 2023). Such rise in support has been exemplified by the Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) triumph in regional elections in eastern states of Germany, the remarkable success of Le Pen’s NR in the 2022 French elections, Giorgia Meloni’s FdI breakthrough in the 2022 Italian election, as well as by the performances of the Sweden Democrats and Finns Party in the last parliamentary elections, which all point to a further increase in the representation of right-wing populist parties in the next EP. In Italy, Meloni’s FdI and Salvini’s Lega, respectively part of the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) and Identity and Democracy (ID), were also seen as potentially decisive actors in the alliance formation of the next European Parliament (Massetti, 2023; Maślanka, 2023).
Elsewhere in Europe, right-wing populist parties have become established in countries like Portugal and Spain, and they have topped the polls in Austria and Belgium. In CEE, right-wing populism has been on the rise in Estonia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. In Hungary, Orbán’s Fidesz secured another term in government in the 2022 elections with a clear victory, putting the contested topics between the party and the EU, like the supremacy of the rule of law, immigration, the Russia–Ukraine War, on the agenda of the EP elections. Moreover, Fidezs’s suspension by the EPP and then its departure from this political group has led the party to search for new coalitions after the elections, with talks of joining the ECR group. In Poland, the October 2023 national elections resulted in the opposition parties’ coalition winning over the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) and the new government of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. While such an outcome will undoubtedly improve relations between Poland and the EU, PiS has maintained its support at around 30% of the vote, together with Confederation, a heterogeneous extremist group at about 10% of the vote.
Analysts predicted ‘a major shift to the right in many countries, with populist radical right parties gaining votes and seats across the EU and centre-left and green parties losing votes and seats’ (Krastev & Leonard, 2024b). Anti-European populists were expected ‘to top the polls in nine member states (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia) and come second or third in a further nine countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden)’ (Ibid.)
The European Parliament and party groups
While reflecting the existing balance of strength across national contexts, populist party performances at the EU level may significantly impact the configuration of party groups within the EP, which is a key legislative body of the EU, working alongside the Council of the European Union to adopt European legislation following proposals by the European Commission. The EP comprises 705 members (MEPs) – 720 in the new EP – making it the second-largest democratic electorate in the world. These MEPs are elected every five years by the citizens of the EU through universal suffrage.
The structure and operation of the EP are governed by its Rules of Procedure, and the political bodies, committees, delegations and political groups guide EP activities. The representation of citizens is ‘degressively proportional’, with a minimum threshold of six members per member state and no member state having more than 96 seats. Degressive proportionality means that while seats are allocated based on the population of the member states, more populous member states agree to be under-represented to favour greater representation of less populated ones.
Political groups within the EP can be formed around a single European political party or can include more than one European party as well as national parties and independents. Prior to the 2024 EP elections, the existing political groups in the EP were the EPP, the Progressive Alliance of S&D, Renew Europe (previously ALDE), the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA), ECR, The Left in the EP (GUE/NGL), and ID.
The outgoing EP was home to both left-wing and right-wing populist parties, that is, while Brothers of Italy (FdI), Vox of Spain, Sweden Democrats, Fidesz of Hungary, Law and Justice (PiS) of Poland, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), the AfD, the National Rally of France, stood on the right side of the spectrum, Podemos of Spain and SYRIZA of Greece represented left-wing populism in the 2019–2024 EP. Regarding political group membership, right-wing populist parties tend to choose different political groups, preventing them from having a common voice in the EP. After the 2019 elections, however, their seeking of collaboration has become more evident, especially under the umbrella of ID and ECR.
Questions addressed in the report
Under the auspices of the European Center for Populism Studies(ECPS), this report examines the electoral performances and impacts of populist parties in the 2024 European elections. Based on a compilation of country-specific analyses by local experts, the report looks at populist party performances across all EU member states, and it discusses the challenges of populist politics for European institutions as well as for the future of Europe.
Each chapter provides background information about the main populist forces in the country of focus by examining their history, electoral support and political agenda. This includes populist parties across the spectrum where deemed relevant. With a focus on the 2024 European election, each country chapter looks at the ‘supply side’ of populism (i.e., the positions of populist parties towards the EU in general and vis-à-vis specific policies, such as migration and asylum, fiscal policy, the Schengen system, European citizenship and democracy, the COVID-19 pandemic, human rights, as well as external affairs, including policy towards the Russia–Ukraine and Israel–Hamas conflicts). Country analyses ask how populists used Euroscepticism, national sovereignty, ethnic culture, identity, xenophobia and religion during the 2024 EP election campaign and what their discourse was on the composition and working mechanisms of the European Parliament.
Additionally, each chapter examines the ‘demand side’ of populism by looking at how populist parties fared in the elections and which topics played a role in their success or failure. Wherever possible, the country chapters in this report provide public opinion data about critical political issues for populist voters and the characterization of crucial sociodemographics of populist voters across different parties and national contexts.
Finally, each country chapter assesses the impact of populist politics in their respective country and at the EU level (e.g., what kind of populist politics are the elected populist parties going to articulate in the EP and which may be their coalition strategy), allowing for the broader conclusions discussed in this report’s final section.
(*) Gilles Ivaldi is researcher in politics at CEVIPOF and professor at Sciences Po Paris. His research interests include French politics, parties and elections, and the comparative study of populism and the radical right in Europe and the United States. Gilles Ivaldi is the author of De Le Pen à Trump : le défi populiste (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2019), The 2017 French Presidential Elections. A political Reformation?, 2018, Palgrave MacMillan, with Jocelyn Evans. He has recently co-edited The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe, European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), 2023, with Emilia Zankina. His research has appeared in journals such as Electoral Studies, the International Journal of Forecasting, Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, French Politics, Revue Française de Science Politique or Political Research Quarterly.
(**) Emilia Zankina is an Associate Professor in Political Science and interim Vice Provost for Global Engagement at Temple University and, since 2020, has served as the Dean of Temple University Rome. She holds a PhD in International Affairs and a Certificate in Advanced East European Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines East European politics, populism, civil service reform, and gender in political representation. She has published in high-ranking international journals, including West European Politics, Politics and Gender, East European Politics, Problems of Post-communism, and Representation, as well as academic presses such as the ECPR Press, Indiana University Press, and others. She frequently serves as an expert adviser for Freedom House, V-Democracy, and projects for the European Commission. In the past, Zankina has served as Provost of the American University in Bulgaria, Associate Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Managing Editor of East European Politics and Societies.
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The reconfiguration of the extreme right in the European Parliament reaffirms prior tendencies and analysis (i.e., that despite the increased representation of radical-right actors, they continue to be divided and unable to act as a united front). Hence, we can expect more ad hoc coalitions on specific issues rather than united positions and policy proposals. What should not be neglected, although, is the legitimation of the radical-right discourse and its impact on both European and domestic politics.
This report has examined the electoral performances of populist parties in the 2024 European elections. The collection of country chapters provides a unique source of information to understand the electoral dynamics of populist parties across Europe, highlighting similarities and differences in the economic, social and political context of the European elections in the 27 EU member states. Here, we summarize the main findings from the individual chapters and provide some general conclusions.
The diversity of the European populist scene
The individual country chapters illustrate the diversity of populism in Europe and the variety of its manifestations across the political spectrum. The findings in this report corroborate the vast literature on populism, which has long identified the plurality of articulations between the ‘thin’ ideology of populism and the ‘thicker’ host ideologies to which it attaches itself. As suggested in the individual chapters, in Western Europe, populism is essentially found to the left and right of the spectrum, while in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), we see a more diverse array of populist actors.
Some individual countries provide a good illustration of such diversity. The Netherlands has long been a breeding ground for populism. Over the years, there has been a succession of populist parties, ranging from right-wing nativist and left-wing populist to agrarian populist. Similarly, Spain has experienced both left and right-wing populism with Podemos and Vox. In Belgium, there are two cases of populist radical parties to the left (PTB–PVDA) and right (VB) of the ideological spectrum. Italy has been described as nothing less than a ‘populist paradise’, hosting a wide range of populist parties. Such diversity is also found in countries like France and, more recently, Germany, with the rise of the BSW to the left of the party spectrum. While in Greece, left–populist parties have been dominant with Syriza and KKE, the populist radical right has long been present with parties such as Golden Dawn and, most recently, with EL and the Democratic Patriotic Movement or ‘Niki’.
There is even more diversity when looking at the populist scene in Central and Eastern Europe. Populists in the centre dominated the elections in Bulgaria, with GERB gaining over 24% of the vote, and in the Czech Republic, with ANO securing 26%. The centrist Prodalzhavame promyanata (PP) and ITN in Bulgaria also registered strong results, with 14% and 6% of the vote, respectively. In Slovakia, it was the left populists of SMER who carried the day, securing 25% of all votes cast. The radical right fared well in all three countries, with Vazrazhdane gaining over 14% in Bulgaria, Hnutie Republika attracting 13% in Slovakia, and Přísaha a Motoristé registering over 10% of the vote in the Czech Republic.
Diversity is also found in the interpretation of populism by populist parties. While populism is still seen as a core feature of the populist right across most cases, there seems to have been a shift away from populist narratives and themes in some parties of the populist left, such as Podemos in Spain, the SP in the Netherlands, and the SF in Denmark. In Spain, for instance, there has been a decline in the use of populist ideas by Podemos, which has turned more clearly to radical-left ones. Moreover, there seems to be less consensus about the populist nature of radical-left parties, as illustrated by Die Linke in Germany, the Left Wing Alliance (VAS) in Finland, the Left Party in Sweden, and the Left Bloc (BE) in Portugal, which may also signal a move away from populism towards a more classic radical-left agenda. The Bulgarian GERB has also significantly moved away from populist narratives, focusing primarily on pro-EU rhetoric. While the Romanian AUR remains Eurosceptic, it has been focusing on specific issues rather than on criticizing the European project itself.
Together with their different locations on the party spectrum, populist parties also diverge in their issue positions. As the country chapters show, this is particularly true of the populist right where substantial differences are found, for instance, in terms of those parties’ economic policies.
In a context marked by rising prices and the inflation crisis, right-wing populist parties have adopted a wide array of economic positions, reflecting diverging economic strategies and the adaptation by populist parties to different contextual opportunities. In France, for example, the RN has significantly moved to the economic left, advocating redistributive policies. In Denmark, the DF combines welfare-chauvinist positions with a good portion of nostalgia. In the Netherlands, the PVV takes a protectionist and welfare-chauvinist position aimed at voters with lower incomes who are most hit by high energy prices. In Cyprus, ELAM supports left-wing economic policies aimed at wealth redistribution and increased state intervention in market regulation. In Estonia, EKRE focuses on economic welfare and regional disparities, as does the EL in Greece, although it combines welfare chauvinism and government interventions with calls for low taxation. Welfare chauvinism and socialist nostalgia have been the trademarks of radical-right populist parties in Bulgaria, but they have also been explored by left populists such as SMER in Slovakia.
In contrast, other right-wing populist parties are found on the economic right. The Dutch FvD, for instance, is more free-market-oriented than the PVV and most other populist radical-right parties in Europe. In Finland, the Finns Party has recently turned to the right on the economy. In Luxembourg, the Alternativ Demokratesch Reformpartei (ADR) exhibits a national-conservative profile and generally maintains a distrust of big government. In Greece, Niki is more free market and low taxation than EL. In Romania, AUR has increasingly introduced neoconservative elements.
Finally, the analysis in this report shows that populist parties differ widely with regard to their political status within their respective political systems. Parties such as the French RN and German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are still political pariahs. In Germany, the AfD remains deeply unpopular, and the party has faced strong criticism for its many controversial statements and positions regarding immigration, Islam and the Second World War. In France, despite Marine Le Pen’s de-demonization strategy, the persistence of the RN’s profile as a political pariah was exposed in the 2024 legislative elections where the traditional Republican Front – that is, ad hoc alliances of parties or voters (or both) across the spectrum whenever the RN is likely to win a decisive round – was revitalized. In contrast, Mélenchon’s populist left LFI has managed to establish itself as a coalition partner to the rest of the left. Another case of a cordon sanitaire around the populist radical right is that of Belgium, where leaders of the N-VA continue to close the door to the Vlaams Belang. In Central and Eastern Europe, extreme parties such as Revival in Bulgaria, AUR in Romania or Hnutie Republika in Slovakia are still kept outside mainstream politics despite growing electoral support.
Elsewhere, however, the current trend is one of increasing mainstreaming and normalization of populist parties as a result of a dual process of modernization and moderation by populists, on the one hand, and accommodation of populist ideas and policies by mainstream parties, on the other hand. Such dual process has been well documented in the recent populism literature (Akkerman, de Lange, and Rooduijn, 2016; Herman and Muldoon, 2019; Mondon and Winter, 2020; Mudde, 2019) and the country chapters in this report corroborate both the centripetal move by a number of populist parties from the margins to the centre of national politics and the accommodation of populism by mainstream actors.
Populist accommodation by parties of the mainstream is traditionally found in countries such as Italy and Austria. In CEE, such cooperation has been found in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria during the 2017–2019 government. This has more recently been the case, for instance, in the Netherlands, where the change in VVD party leadership has produced a change of strategy towards the PVV, with the new VVD party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz openly suggesting that her party would no longer exclude a government with Wilders. In Sweden, the cordon sanitaire was breached before the 2022 parliamentary election when three of the centre-right parties expressed a more open stance towards the Sweden Democrats. In Cyprus, despite its radical positions and extreme right-wing roots, ELAM has managed to integrate into the political mainstream, collaborating with other parties on specific issues in the House of Representatives since 2016.
Populists against Europe? The strategic moderation of populist Euroscepticism
The modernization of populist politics concerns, in particular, the moderation and blurring of those parties’ positions regarding European integration. The country chapters illustrate such a dampening of Eurosceptic politics, both left and right of the populist spectrum. In many cases, the analysis shows that populist parties have recently abandoned their previous hard Eurosceptic plans to exit the Euro or the EU, often adopting ambiguous positions vis-à-vis European integration and a softer tone vis-à-vis the EU. As discussed in the introduction of this report, this represents a strategic move by populists to increase their appeal to moderate and pro-EU voters and to foster collaboration with mainstream parties.
In France, the RN has abandoned its previous policy of “Frexit”, while de-emphasizing European issues to increase its appeal to moderate voters. Like the RN, LFI has toned down its Euroscepticism in recent years, moving away from its previous call to leave the EU and that France should disobey the European treaties. In Sweden, the SD have moderated their Euroscepticism and dropped their demand for a referendum on EU withdrawal. Such a move has also been visible in the Netherlands, where Wilders has successfully presented himself as a more moderate candidate, no longer calling for a Nexit but promising to reform the EU from within. In Portugal, Chega has articulated some soft Euroscepticism in its European election manifesto. In Italy, Fratelli d’Italia advocates for national sovereignty over supranational integration while maintaining a relatively moderate stance on opposition to the European Union. A similar dampening of Eurosceptic policies and themes has been found in the Lega and M5S since 2018. In Finland, the Finns Party has abandoned its long-term goal of withdrawing from the EU. A stronger support for the EU is found in Luxembourg, where the ADR explicitly acknowledges the great advances the EU had given to Europe in terms of peace and prosperity in post-war Europe while praising the positive benefits the EU and immigration have brought to the country. In Greece, the left-populist Syriza put forward a version of soft Euroscepticism, criticizing the EU’s democratic deficit. The right-wing populist EL has been advocating for a Europe made of nation-states, but it has not been openly calling for Grexit, and neither has the other new right-wing populist party, Niki. The FPÖ clearly stated that it would not aim for an ‘Öxit’, although it called for cuts in the EU budget and institutions and a Union based on subsidiarity and federalism.
In Western Europe, the German AfD stands out for its hard Eurosceptic positions. The most radical faction has dominated the AfD since 2017. In the run-up to the 2024 European elections, the party initially called for the dissolution of the European Union in its manifesto but dropped this demand from the final manifesto after facing public backlash. The Dutch FvD similarly favours Nexit. In Greece, the communist KKE has similarly maintained a hard Eurosceptic stance (as well as an anti-NATO stance), supporting Greece’s exit from the EU and accusing it of being imperialistic, anti-democratic, capitalist and exploitative.
Populists in Central and Eastern Europe widely vary in their level of Euroscepticism. The Croatian right-populist DL, for example, exhibits a soft Eurosceptic orientation, framing the EU as a confederation of sovereign states and never advocating for closer relations with ‘alternative partners’ in global politics, such as Russia, China or the BRICS. The DL expresses a strong opinion against further EU enlargement due to Serbia’s candidacy status, while the Romanian AUR, on the contrary, advocates for EU memberships for Moldova. By contrast, the Bulgarian Vazrazhdane urges for an immediate exit from NATO and the EU, while centrist populist parties in Bulgaria, such as GERB and PP, are ardently pro-European. Czech populists from the centre and the right expressed different levels of criticism towards the EU. ANO, which has been in opposition since 2021, gradually shifted from a mildly pro-European stance towards soft Euroscepticism. The SPD, on the other hand, has sustained its uncompromisingly anti-immigration and hard Eurosceptic rhetoric, describing the EU as a ‘dictatorship in Brussels’ dominated by ‘non-elected bureaucrats’ who produce ‘directives that are against the interests of our state and our people’. Euroscepticism is extremely limited in Estonia, where 77–78% of the population supports EU membership.
Similarly, in Latvia, voters tend to support sober, politically experienced personalities to represent Latvia’s national (rather than party) interests in the European Parliament, leaving little room for Eurosceptic rhetoric. In Romania, AUR has softened its Euroscepticism, while the new SOS prides itself in being the first to advocate for a ‘Ro-exit’. In Slovakia, the ruling SMER claims to support EU membership despite its many shortcomings, while ĽSNS argues that the EU cannot be reformed. Consequently, its party leader promised to ‘lay the groundwork for Slovakia’s exit from the European Union and break the EU from within.’
Populist parties, particularly of the radical right, have been shying away from hard Eurosceptic positions, emphasizing an intergovernmental vision of a community of sovereign and independent states, now claiming to reform the EU ‘from within’ while opposing further enlargement of the EU. As the country chapters in this report show, right-wing populist parties across Europe continue to vilify a ‘bureaucratic EU’. ‘Taking back control’ from Brussels has become a common theme of right-wing populist narratives. In Belgium, the VB has been using the ‘taking back control’ tagline while denouncing EU leaders as ‘extremists’, bureaucrats and technocrats. In the Netherlands, the PVV’s European electoral program emphasized the need to reform the EU from within rather than to leave the Union. In Italy, while cooperating with the EU, Giorgia Meloni’s FdI continues to engage in ideological struggles on specific policies such as civil liberties, environmental issues, gender equality and EU constitutional matters. The Danish DF claims the EU needs to be strongly downsized to safeguard national sovereignty, a similar claim to that of the Denmark Democrats, which ask for ‘less EU’ and more national sovereignty.
Were the 2024 EP elections another ‘populist’ moment?
Rather than showing a new wave of populism, the results of the 2024 European elections have essentially confirmed the electoral consolidation of the populist phenomenon in Europe. In 2019, taking all groups together, populist parties had won 241 seats, representing about a third (32%) of all 751 seats in the European Parliament. In 2024, these parties won 263 of the 720 seats – approximately 36% (see Figure 1, Tables 1, 2 and 3).
Such results reflect the rise in support for populism in recent national elections as well as the increase in the number and geographical spread of populist parties across Europe. Based on the delineation of populism in the country chapters, no less than 60 populist parties across 26 EU member states gained representation in the European Parliament in June 2024. In comparison, a total of 40 populist parties had won seats in 22 EU countries in the 2019 election.
Populist party performances varied, however, across countries and different brands of populism. Moreover, the new distribution of seats should not mask distortions due to the relative weight of national representations in the European Parliament. In June 2024, the largest contingents of populist MEPs came mainly from the populist right in the more populated European countries, in particular from France’s Rassemblement National (30 seats), Fratelli d’Italia (24 seats), the Polish PiS (20 seats), the German AfD (15 seats) and Hungary’s Fidesz (11 seats). In the populist left, the largest contingent came from France’s LFI (9 seats). For centrist populist parties, the largest delegations were elected in Italy with the M5S (8 seats) and in the Czech Republic, where ANO received seven seats.
Asymmetrical populist performances
The results of the 2024 European elections have essentially attested to the consolidation of the populist right, while left-wing and centrist populist parties have received comparatively less support across Europe.
The populist right has established its presence in virtually all EU member states – there are no fewer than 50 such parties in Europe. Right-wing populist parties have done particularly well in countries such as France, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Netherlands; in many countries, the populist right-wing scene is made up of two, three and sometimes more parties.
There has also been a diversification of the populist right with the emergence of new actors. Alongside the major established players, new parties have emerged, including the Danish Democrats (DD), Latvia First (LPV), Chega in Portugal, the EL and Niki in Greece, the AUR and SOS in Romania, and the Czech Přísaha and PRO. In Lithuania, a populist radical-right politician and his party TSS made a breakthrough, gaining a seat in the EP for the first time.
Other movements have disappeared or been replaced by new populist parties. This is particularly true in Central and Eastern Europe, where party systems traditionally remain more fluid. The Bulgarian Ataka, long represented in the national assembly and the European Parliament, has all but disappeared since 2021, only to be replaced by Vazrazhdane. Golden Dawn, which came third in the 2015 elections in Greece, practically disappeared by 2019 when it failed to enter the national parliament. Its leadership was subsequently imprisoned following a prolonged trial on charges of running a criminal organization. Although the party disappeared, its ideology and electorate were easily picked up by EL, which has been represented since 2019 both in the national and in the European parliaments. Interestingly, small extreme right-wing-wing anti-immigration parties (i.e., the Irish Freedom Party, National Party, Ireland First and The Irish People) have surfaced in a country like Ireland, which has traditionally been more immune to far-right populism in the past, suggesting that the immigration issue has acquired more resonance in Irish politics in recent years.
Altogether, parties of the populist right won 177 seats, making up about a quarter (24%) of all 720 seats in the new European Parliament, an increase on their previous performances in 2019 –168 seats out of 751, that is about 22% (see Figure 1). Amongst the biggest winners were the French RN, the Italian Fratelli d’Italia, the FPÖ in Austria, the VB in Flanders, the Slovenian Democratic Party, the AUR in Romania and the National Alliance in Latvia, which all saw a significant rise in electoral support in the 2024 European elections. Let us also note that the 2024 elections have seen the rise of extreme right-wing nationalist parties across a number of EU member states, as illustrated by the electoral success of Vazrazhdane in Bulgaria, the Confederation in Poland, Hnutie Republika in Slovakia, ELAM in Cyprus, and Domovinski Pokret (DP) in Croatia. Altogether, parties that may be classified as ‘extreme right-wing’ won 15 seats in the European Parliament, significantly increasing their presence since the 2019 elections, where the extreme right-wing had received only 4 seats.
Such a wave of support for right-wing populists has been far from uniform, however, as a number of those parties have suffered losses across Europe. In Portugal, Chega lost nearly 783.000 votes from its general election tally, down to 9.8% of the vote. In Spain, while clearly improving its results from the 2019 EP elections, Vox lost significant support when compared with the 2023 general elections. In Sweden, the SD fell far behind the result of the 2022 parliamentary election. Fidesz in Hungary lost 2 seats despite winning the elections, facing a serious challenge by the new opposition party Tisza. Although PiS and Konfederacija collectively attracted almost half of the votes, PiS lost 9 seats in the EP – the biggest reversal in support in its history.
Compared with their right-wing counterparts, the parties of the populist left have been comparatively less successful, although they have somewhat improved their performance from five years ago. As Figure 1 shows, the populist left won a total of 46 seats in the new European Parliament in June, which represented just over 6% of all 720 seats. This result compared with 37 seats (about 5%) in the previous Parliament. As was the case for the populist right, left-wing populist party performances varied substantially across countries.
In countries such as Ireland, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain, there was a drop in support for the populist left, reflecting the more general decline in support for those parties since the 2008 financial crisis. In Ireland, Sinn Féin suffered significant losses, seeing much of his previous support going to independent or small-party candidates. In the Netherlands, the SP received a mere 2.2% of the vote, showing a decline since its success in 2014 when it had obtained almost 10% of the vote. The Spanish Podemos only received 3.3% of the vote, compared with 20% in 2016 –in alliance with Izquierda Unida (IU) at the time. In the case of Podemos, such decline reflected a variety of factors, including government participation and the recovery of macroeconomic indicators. In Greece, Syriza lost about 3 percentage points on its score in the June 2023 general election, down to 14.9% of the vote, although EKK maintained its 2 MEP seats, as well as representation in the national parliament.
In countries like Belgium and France, there were mixed performances for the populist left. The progress of the Belgian PTB–PVDA was asymmetrical, with the party making more significant gains on the Dutch-speaking side, almost doubling its score. In France, Mélenchon’s left-wing populist LFI won 9.9% of the vote, which represented a gain of 3.6 percentage points on its previous result in the 2019 EP elections, yet far lower than Mélenchon’s performance at 22% in the 2022 presidential election.
Support for the populist left rose, on the other hand, in Nordic countries such as Denmark and Finland. The Danish Red-Green Alliance won 7% of the vote (+2 percentage points compared to the legislative elections of November 2022). In Finland, the biggest surprise came from the Left Alliance (VAS), which came in second with 17.3% of the vote and three seats as opposed to one in the previous parliament. In Slovakia, SMER managed to regain political control in the 2023 national elections and increase its representation in the European Parliament from 3 to 5 seats – a major comeback for Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt just a month before the EP elections.
Finally, the 2024 European elections have confirmed centrist populism as a relatively marginal political phenomenon, essentially concentrated in Central and Eastern Europe. In June 2024, only 26 seats were won by centrist populist parties, making up just under 4% of all seats in the new European Parliament, which was very close to those parties’ performances five years ago (32 seats representing just over 4%).
While well-established centrist populist parties such as ANO in the Czech Republic and GERB in Bulgaria managed to secure their electoral support from the previous national elections, winning 7 and 5 seats, respectively, other centrist populist parties performed less well. In Bulgaria, PP lost heavily on their previous performance in the April 2023 elections and secured only two seats in the new European Parliament. This was also the case with the Darbo Partija in Lithuania, which lost most of its support from the last general election and failed to capture a single seat in the EP. Other parties’ results oscillated, such as for ‘There is Such a People’ in Bulgaria, which won the July 2021 early national elections, disappeared from the national parliament in the early national elections in 2022 and reappeared in 2023, gaining a single sear in the EP at the 2024 elections. New centrist populist parties, such as the Czech Přísaha, managed to surpass the threshold, sending one MEP to Brussels. Others, such as Stabilitātei! in Latvia and OL’aNO and SaS in Slovakia, failed to pass the threshold at the European Parliament elections despite gaining representation in the national parliaments in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
In Italy, the results of the 2024 elections have attested to the continuing electoral decline of the M5S. The party received 10% of the vote and eight seats, significantly losing ground from its previous performances in the 2019 European (17.1% of the vote cast) and 2022 general elections (15.4%).
A regional divide?
As mentioned earlier, the distribution of populism across Europe shows a regional divide (see Table 1). In the 2024 European elections, left-wing populism was primarily found in Western Europe, where 13 of those parties were in competition, as opposed to only 2 in Eastern and Central Europe (i.e., SMER in Slovakia and Levica in Slovenia). Conversely, centrist populism was essentially located in CEE countries, which had nine of those parties, as opposed to only two in Western Europe (i.e., the M5S in Italy and the BBB in the Netherlands). Populist radical-right parties were in the majority, and they were predominantly found in Western European countries (21 as opposed to 12 in CEE). Finally, the regional distribution of populism shows the rise of extreme right-wing parties in countries of the former Soviet Union, with no less than 11 of those parties competing in the 2024 European elections, as opposed to only one (ELAM in Cyprus) in the western part of the EU.
Table 1. Number of parties by populist family across Western and Eastern Europe
Countries
Left
Centrist
Right
Radical Right
Extreme Right
Total
Eastern
11
2
9
4
12
11
38
Western
15
13
2
2
21
1
39
26
15
11
6
33
12
77
Source:Compiled by the authors based on Rooduijn et al. (2023) and 2024 EP election data.
Such an uneven distribution of populism makes it difficult to accurately evaluate regional differences in populist party electoral support across Western and Central and Eastern Europe. As the country chapters clearly illustrate, there was a significant amount of variation in the electoral performances of populist parties in the 2024 European elections, both across and within regions. Moreover, no less than 27 populist parties were new parties that had not run in the 2019 European elections, thus rendering the analysis of change in populist party support even more difficult.
Table 2. Average electoral support by populist party family across Western and Eastern Europe
Average % of vote 2024 European elections and change from most recent national election
Left
Centrist
Right
Radical Right
Extreme Right
Eastern
29.5*
9.36
1.21
14.61
5.65
Change
(+1.1)
(–3.3)
(+0.9)
(+1.4)
(+1.8)
Western
7.28
7.69*
10.67*
11.63
11.19*
Change
(–0.2)
(–2.4)
(+2.0)
(+0.9)
(+4.4)
Source: Compiled by the authors based on 2024 EP election data.
* These results should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of parties (n ≤ 2).
Table 2 shows the mean electoral support for populist parties in the 2024 European elections and the change from the most recent general election. The data are broken down by region and populist party family. Because of such heterogeneity, the data in Table 2 should be taken with caution. These data confirm, however, that centrist and left-wing populist parties have lost ground on average in the 2024 European elections compared with their performances in the last general election in their respective country and that such decline was visible in both Eastern and Western European countries. On average, the populist radical right has made progress across both regions: +1.4 percentage points in CEE countries and +0.9 percentage points in Western Europe, again bearing in mind that there was substantial variation in party performances within each region. Finally, the data show that extreme right-wing ultra-nationalist movements have made gains in Eastern Europe, winning an additional 1.8 percentage points on average on their previous performance in the last general election.
Overall, with all limitations in mind, the data do not show a clear regional divide in terms of populist party performances in the 2024 European elections but rather point to the diversity of populist manifestations and variation of their electoral performances within each region. At the country level, the German case illustrates a more striking regional pattern as all three populist parties were much more successful in the eastern states, reflecting the multi-faceted legacy of the GDR and the political impact of the shock and aftermath of the transformation in the 1990s.
Diverse drivers of populism in the EP elections 2024
Across Europe, the popularity of populist movements is rooted in the ‘polycrisis’ to which EU citizens have been exposed since 2008 – the financial crisis, the 2015 refugee crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and now the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Fidesz’s electoral slogan, ‘No migration, no gender, no war!’ succinctly captures the division lines not only between populists and non-populists but also among populists from the left, the centre, and the right and even within those subcategories. In Austria, the polycrisis amalgam was perfectly summed up by the FPÖ’s slogan in the run-up to the vote: ‘Stop European chaos, the asylum crisis, climate terror, warmongering and Corona chaos’. In Italy, the multiple crises have led to increased opposition to the EU. In France, since 2012, support for the RN has been fuelled by feelings of economic alienation mediated by cultural concerns over immigration and strong anti-elite sentiments.
However, this polycrisis has played out differently in each country. Belgium illustrates such differences: the political debate in Flanders saw more focus on migration, law and order and public finances, whereas, in French-speaking Belgium, the focus was more on energy, civil rights and work. Immigration issues have become more salient in countries such as Cyprus, which is the first country in the EU to move to per capita applications for asylum. This has led to Euroscepticism and discontent in relation to the EU’s management of immigration. In contrast, in Sweden, immigration was less significant than it had been in both the previous European election and the Riksdag election of 2022. In Greece, domestic – rather than European – issues dominated the campaigns, including the economy, inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, with populists both from the right and the left cashing in on economic decline and regional disparities. In Austria, the FPÖ focused on migration, the war in Ukraine, climate change and, notably, the COVID-19 pandemic. Amongst those four, migration was the most important issue in the campaign. In Latvia, populist parties campaigned around the war in Ukraine, the Green Deal and its economic impact, and the defence of traditional family and Christian values, opposing progressive, liberal ideals in Brussels, including LGBTQ+ rights. Opposition to LGBTQ+ rights was typical for most of the radical-right populists, including in Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. LGBTQ+ rights were countered with arguments on religion and traditional family values, including criticisms of political correctness and limiting the freedom of speech. By contrast, some left–populist outfits (such as the Greek KKE) have been defenders of LGBTQ+ rights and socially progressive in general.
Economic uncertainty as a common driver of populism
Beyond such variation, the economic context has heavily weighed on public opinion and has fuelled frustration and anger around the rising cost of living in many countries. Economic fears clearly dominated the campaign in France, creating a propitious context for populist politics across the board. The Denmark Democrats have made significant inroads in rural areas where voters feel neglected and left behind. In Germany, the AfD continued to push their core issues — first and foremost immigration, but also the economic impact of the war on Germany, climate denialism and hard Euroscepticism. To the left, populist parties have also politicized the economic crisis. In Ireland, support for Sinn Féin rose in the 2010s as it adopted a more populist approach combined with a strong focus on economic issues. The acuteness of the housing crisis also helped the party. Sinn Féin had campaigned strongly on the housing issue, and it was this that brought it increased support among young progressive voters.
Luxembourg serves as a counterexample here. Public opinion data show that compared to the EU average, Luxembourgers were far more satisfied with their economic situation and the EU, and they felt much better off economically and also had much higher levels of trust in their national government and the EU. The fact that populists enjoyed more support in rural areas and among the less educated in the Czech Republic and Romania, among others, further indicates the importance of economic uncertainty as a driving factor.
Immigration and refugees
In many cases, the populist radical right has capitalized on insecurities linked to immigration and asylum seekers, which was a key issue in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Poland and France. Germany had accepted more than a million Ukrainian refugees after the 2022 attack, which brought the issue of immigration back onto the agenda in 2023 after its salience had been low for several years. In France, next to inflation, immigration emerged as the second most salient issue, followed by law and order. In Flanders, the immigration agenda has been particularly favourable to the populist radical parties such as the VB. Immigration represented a key focus for all right-wing populists (EL, FL, and Niki) in Greece. In Austria, The FPÖ rejected the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum and the mandatory distribution of asylum seekers across the EU, calling instead for a ‘Pact on Re-Migration’. In Italy, the populist governing coalition of FdI, Lega, and Forza Italia prides itself on the migration deal signed with Albania that aims to relocate immigrants arriving in Italy to Italian-operated refugee centres in Albania. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has further succeeded in pushing for EU-wide agreements with North African countries that envision limiting the flow of migrants in exchange for financial assistance.
Immigration issues were also prominent in Eastern and Central European countries. In the Czech Republic, populists from the centre and the right framed migration in security terms, rejecting the EU Pact on Migration, highlighting the so-called “no-go zones” where women are at risk and Islamic minorities have brought crime, terrorism and the domination of Sharia law. In Poland, migration has been a major focus of both PiS and Konfederacija. The influx of refugees from Ukraine has provided fertile ground for populist discourses. While the PiS government had initially embraced Ukrainian refugees, the prolonged war and the sheer number of refugees resulted in a backlash with time and fervent opposition against the EU’s Migration Pact, which was labelled the ‘Trojan horse of Europe’. The governing SMER party in Slovakia has similarly criticized the Pact on Migration and Asylum and opposed compulsory relocation schemes, proposing measures in the country of origin instead.
Such rising salience of immigration issues may account for the decline in support for left-wing populism. In Ireland, for example, the 2024 European Parliament elections came on the back of a rise in the prominence of immigration as an issue. Sinn Féin’s falling support, then, can be seen as the party’s failure to address such issues despite trying to change its discourse on the pressure that recently arrived asylum seekers put on social services. Similarly, in the Netherlands, the inability of the SP to attract economically left-wing and welfare-chauvinist voters may be seen as a consequence of the party’s lack of commitment to an anti-immigrant stance. In Italy, similarly, M5S has lost support also due to its inability to address the migration problem.
Populist polarization over climate change and the green transition
There has also been a backlash against the European Green Deal, with populist radical-right parties attacking the environmental transition as being “punitive”. Right-wing populist parties’s scepticism about climate change and hostility to low-carbon energy policies has been well documented in the literature (Lockwood and Lockwood, 2022). The recent study by Forchtner and Lubarda (2023) suggests that right-wing populist parties generally claim that climate policies should not harm the economy and jobs and that such parties most effectively perform as defenders of the nation’s economic well-being.
In Flanders, the VB opposes further enlargement and positions itself against the interference of the EU in the national politics of illiberal democracies, as well as against EU policies in terms of climate and agriculture. In Luxembourg, the ADR party has prioritized the preservation of the combustion engine, more generally opposing green politics. The Finns Party has been the Eurosceptic party in Finnish EP elections, promoting an agenda opposed to the EU, immigration and climate change policies. In the Netherlands, the PVV vehemently called for opt-out possibilities for the Netherlands regarding asylum seekers and migration and relaxing obligations with respect to climate change, especially nitrogen. The Austrian FPÖ demands a stop to the European Green Deal, the EU Nature Restoration Law, and the scheduled ban on combustion engines. In Poland, the European Green Deal has been criticized both by PiS and Konfederacija as an ideological project of EU elites aimed against ordinary citizens. Both parties have highlighted the high prices of energy, transport and agriculture to ordinary Poles. The European Green Deal was similarly criticized by right-wing populists in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, to name a few.
In contrast, left-wing populist parties have been taking up environmental issues, and they have endorsed an agenda of green transition (Duina and Zhou 2024). Parties such as LFI in France and Podemos in Spain have placed environmental issues at the core of their political platform while blaming political and economic elites for the environmental crisis. In Italy, Movimento 5 Stelle’s electoral platform emphasizes anti-austerity measures, public healthcare defence, anti-corruption efforts, environmental protection, and labour issues, including introducing a minimum wage and a 32-hour workweek. SMER is a notable exception in the left–populist camp, as it has vehemently criticized the Green Dea, labelling it an “extreme environmental initiative” pushed through by “Eurocrats with no accountability” and rejecting the target of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030.
Such a populist divide over climate change is most visible in France, where radical right-wing populist parties such as the RN and Reconquête clearly oppose the European Green Deal and play with climate-sceptic themes to sway voters most affected by the economic cost of the green transition. In contrast, the left-wing populist LFI has adopted an eco-socialist and ambitious green transition agenda, championing the fight against climate change (Chazel and Dain, 2024). We see a similar divide in Italy: Lega’s platform focuses on halting the EU’s technocratic and centralizing drift and restoring the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Key proposals include rejecting the Green Deal, ending austerity policies and protecting Italian production chains. In contrast, the M5S has put environmental protection and green transition policies at the core of its electoral platform. In Denmark, the left-wing populist SF has spearheaded the call to accelerate decarbonization efforts and implement policies to achieve concrete results quickly, given the urgency of the climate crisis. In contrast, the populist right-wing, led by the DF and the Denmark Democrats, opposed environmental regulations, which they believed would harm the competitiveness of Danish agricultural products in the European market.
In Germany, on the other hand, the government’s green transition policies are strongly opposed by populist parties across the board. These parties also sided with large-scale farmers’ protests against some cuts to agrarian subsidies that eventually forced a government U-turn. The AfD continued to push climate denialism and hard Euroscepticism. Both AfD and BSW will likely vote against any policies related to the ‘green transformation.’
Finally, the ecological divide is found across other types of populism. In the Netherlands, for example, the BBB typically pits ordinary citizens and farmers against ‘oat milk cappuccino drinking’ city dwellers and unresponsive politicians from the major cities in the west of the country (the so-called Randstad). BBB’s core issues centre around support for farmers and opposition to radical climate policies. Similarly, in Romania, the SOS emphasized the protection of farmers and agriculture workers, criticizing EU product regulations, advocating for Romanians’ rights to continue using traditional energy sources like firewood and natural gas, and demanding the reopening of coal mines. In the Czech Republic, the European Green Deal has been rejected by both the ANO and the SPD. While ANO accused Brussels of committing ritual suicide, the SPD attacked the reduction of combustion engines by placing a former racing driver at the top of its electoral list.
Gaza and the Israel–Hamas war
The Israel–Hamas war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza have provoked diametrically opposed reactions among populists from across the political spectrum. The conflict has featured much more prominently in political discourse in Western Europe than in Central and Eastern Europe, where the war in Ukraine has taken precedence.
France is a good illustration of such a divide. French lead candidates show deep splits over recognition of a Palestinian state. Left-leaning contenders, from the Communists to the social democrats, are clearly in favour of a ‘two-state solution’, while the French far right, in a break with the past, now supports Israel. Marine Le Pen and RN President Jordan Bardella joined pro-Israeli protests, blaming left-leaning forces for allegedly failing to condemn the 7 October attacks. The LFI, by contrast, has taken a pro-Palestinain position, calling for sanctions against the Israeli government, an embargo on the shipping of weaponry and artillery, an end to the 2000 EU-Israel Association Agreement, and the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state. Mélenchon and members of LFI were accused of antisemitism for declining to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group.
Overall, voters of left-wing forces were more concerned about war in Palestine than Ukraine and were more likely to support the Palestinian cause. This concern was particularly visible among Podemos voters, as well as KKE supporters in Greece. Yet, some right-wing populists have also sided with Palestine and not with Israel, including the Belgian PTB–PVDA and the Irish PBP. Romanian SOS leader Șoșoacă has been accused of antisemitism for her controversial remarks. For instance, during a joint session of parliament dedicated to the Day of Solidarity and Friendship between Romania and Israel in May 2024, Șoșoacă complained that this day should serve to commemorate Romanian martyrs from communist prisons, criticizing what she viewed as an incorrect focus on antisemitism. She protested that Romania saved over 400,000 Jews during the Second World War. Vazrazhdane’s leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, has also been highly critical of Israel, although acknowledging the terrorist attack of Hamas and advocating for a two-state solution.
Other right-wing populists have firmly defended Israel. Chega claimed that Netanyahu’s government was entitled to ‘neutralize the threat’ and was the only parliamentary party to decline to join calls for a ceasefire. In Germany, a knife attack by an Afghan man left a police officer dead just days before the election, triggering a fresh debate about immigration, Islamism and the longstanding policy against deportations to Afghanistan. The anti-Islam stance was also important for the Czech SPD, which has been a stalwart defender of Israel.
Ukraine and Russia
The outbreak of the war in Ukraine resulted in diverse responses by populist parties. Many populists on the right, especially in Western Europe, initially distanced themselves from Putin and cooled off their usual pro-Russian stance. Others, on the contrary, became even more pro-Russian (Ivaldi and Zankina, 2023). Such diversity can be explained by specific geostrategic and historical factors, including geographical proximity to Russia, past conflicts, cultural proximity or trade relations.
Some of the most vehement defenders of Russia in the West have been the AfD and FPÖ, which have denounced their respective governments’ support for Kyiv, accusing them of ‘warmongering’. The AfD has a longstanding association with Russia, repeatedly voicing sympathy for Putin and his regime. Although the party toned down its statements immediately after the February 2022 attack, it has since highlighted the economic consequences of the war and the sanctions for Germany, reinventing itself as a party of “peace”, even adopting the classic dove symbol. The BSW took an even more pro-Russian stance than the AfD, with its leader Wagenknecht routinely claiming that the US and the collective Western block a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine for reasons of their own. BSW’s 20-page manifesto mentions sanctions 14 times, depicting them as harmful to Germany while having no effect on Russia itself. The FPÖ criticized the EU’s support for Kyiv, calling for an immediate end to financial and military aid to Ukraine and abolishing sanctions against Russia due to their detrimental effects on the economy. The Austrian government, in turn, was criticized for a breach of the country’s constitutional obligation of neutrality. The Dutch FvD has also propagated a pro-Russia and pro-Putin line, as did the Swedish SD. SD’s leader Åkesson stated that there is an upper limit to how much support Sweden should give to Ukraine, while the party’s top candidate, Charlie Weimers, suggested that their own party group, ECR, should be open to cooperating with parties in the ID group, whose stance on Russia has been characterized as relatively friendly. The Irish PBP has taken positions that are less in tune with popular opinion and are often seen as pro-Russian, including calls for Ukraine to enter peace talks.
Putin has enjoyed even more support in Central and Eastern Europe, including in Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Orbán’s campaign made the war in Ukraine its centrepiece. He used fear-mongering to build a Manichean narrative where anybody failing to vote for Fidesz was part of the ‘pro-war’ camp, accusing the Hungarian opposition of carrying out the demands of its international financiers in Brussels and Washington. Orbán repeatedly blamed the EU for wrongdoing and claimed that because of the incompetent leadership in Brussels, ‘instead of peace, we have war, instead of security we have a rule-of-law ruckus, instead of prosperity we have financial blackmail’. The Bulgarian Vazrazhdane and its leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, have been stark defenders of Putin to the extent of reaching comical proportions. Kostadinv is widely known in the country as ‘kopeikin’, referring to the Russian coin currency. His rallies feature more Russian than Bulgarian national flags. He frequently travels to Moscow, and his party is known to be funded by Putin (Zankina, 2024). The Czech SPD has become one of the most vocal anti-Ukrainian voices following Russia’s 2022 invasion, as did the newly emerged SOS in Romania. SOS’s leader Șoșoacă was declared ‘Personality of the Year’ in 2021 by Sputnik. She asserted that Europeans and Americans aim to destroy Russia and argued that Ukraine illegally occupies territories, including some that rightfully belong to Romania. The left–populist SMER in Slovakia, in turn, has called for a halt of all military assistance to Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression and for a more neutral stance toward Russia. SMER blamed the EU for ‘prolonging war in Europe’ by supporting Ukraine.
In contrast to such support for Putin, a number of parties across Europe have adopted a pro-Ukraine position. In Finland, for example, support for Ukraine has been almost unanimous, including by the Finns Party, which has criticized Putin’s Russia, expressing strong support for Ukraine. Similarly, the Danish People’s Party and the Denmark’s Democrats are declaredly pro-Ukraine. In Portugal, Chega also aligned with most mainstream parties, adopting a pro-Ukraine position. The Croatian DP has expressed firm solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, drawing parallels between Croatia’s Homeland War (1991–1991) and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Although Sinn Féin has often blamed the West for being unnecessarily aggressive toward Putin, with the invasion of Ukraine, the party stood firmly behind Ukraine, although it continued to abstain on aid packages in the EP.
Many parties struggled to take a clear stance, expressing ambiguous positions. The RN, for example, has significantly moderated its attitude. Le Pen said her only ‘red line’ on Ukraine was stopping France from becoming a ‘co-belligerent’ in the conflict via the use of long-range French missiles against targets on Russian soil. French far-right leader Jordan Bardella said he backed Ukraine’s right to defend itself against Russia, but if elected prime minister, he would not provide Kyiv with missiles that would allow it to strike Russia’s territory. He also said he would stand by France’s commitments to NATO if he became prime minister. In Germany, the Left’s manifesto for the European elections also reflected ambiguity.
On the one hand, the document is highly critical of the US and NATO and even claims that the eastern enlargement of NATO has “contributed to the crisis”. On the other, it highlights Ukraine’s right to self-defence, condemns the attack as a war crime, and demands the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. The Dutch PVV supported the strengthening of defence, however, without singling out Russia as the main threat. Populists in Latvia took similarly ambivalent positions on Russia. S! refused to blame Russia for the invasion, arguing instead for ‘peace’. The LPV initially denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but subsequently softened its stance, advocating for the need for negotiations, peace and the renewal of economic relations with Russia – a position also adopted by SV, which primarily appeals to Russian speakers. The Romanian AUR has taken nuanced positions. While denouncing Russia’s interference as a significant obstacle to unification with Moldova, the party also criticizes Ukrainian discrimination against ethnic minorities, particularly Romanians.
Multiple Factors of populist performances across EU member states
As the individual chapters illustrate, beyond differences in issue salience across countries, there were a variety of political factors that may account for differences in populist party electoral performances in the 2024 European elections.
National cycle
Such performances may be first related to the location of the EP elections in each country’s national political cycle. The analysis in this report corroborates studies that show that party performances in European elections are mediated by the time of these elections in the national electoral cycle, that government parties lose support in EU elections, especially during the midterm of a national parliamentary cycle, and that opposition parties may benefit from this (Hix and Marsh 2007).
In Germany, the 2024 European election saw devastating results for the governing coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and Liberal Democrats (FDP). The so-called “progressive coalition” and its policies have been deeply unpopular, and the radical-right AfD was the main beneficiary of this discontent. In France, political protest and anti-incumbent sentiments were key to populist voting across the spectrum: over two-thirds of RN voters said they essentially voted to manifest their opposition to the President and the Government, and it was 53% among LFI voters. In the Netherlands, the results of the 2024 European elections for populist parties in the Netherlands were intimately related to the fall of the Rutte IV government in the Summer of 2023 and the outcome of the subsequent national elections on 22 November 2023, which saw a rise in support for the PVV. In Poland, the governing coalition, which managed to take power away from PiS in 2023, saw a decline in its support. While PiS lost 12 MEP seats, it did regain some of its support compared to the 2023 national election. In Slovakia, SMER, which managed to take back power from OL’aNO in the 2023 national election, lost some of its support in the EP elections, coming second after the liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS). In Hungary, while Fidesz won the elections, it lost some support and faced an unprecedented challenge by a new political party that reshuffled the power balance in the opposition.
The country chapters also find evidence of another key element of the ‘second order’ model that has been applied to European elections since the early 1980s, which is that voters typically make judgements about national political issues in those elections (Reif and Schmitt, 1980). In many countries, the 2024 European elections were fought over domestic rather than European issues and populist parties often played the national card. In Spain, for example, the number and relevance of ongoing national-level political issues often sidelined European ones during the 2024 campaign. In Portugal, Chega’s manifesto proposals were mostly domestic; European-level proposals were scarce despite a broader media agenda focused on European immigration, defence and EU enlargement. In Germany, domestic actors and attitudes dominated the campaign, with only a minority of populist voters saying that “Europe” was more important for their decision than “Germany”, particularly AfD supporters who were more inward-looking and more Eurosceptic than the BSW’s. In Greece, domestic issues dominated, with election results representing an anti-government protest vote. This was also the case in the Czech Republic, where many voters supported populist parties out of frustration with national politics and the government’s performance.
The European elections further coincided with national and local elections in Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Malta and Romania. The 2024 elections in Belgium were a triple election for the European, federal and regional levels. In this context, European elections were clearly second-order elections. In Bulgaria, the elections coincided with early national elections (the sixth in two years). Thus, European issues were subsumed by overall political instability and infighting, polarizing discourse and a record-low voter turnout.
Populists in government
Populists in government have had varying success in the 2024 European elections. While the FdL in Italy managed to maintain its dominance, including within the governing coalition, the Finns Party saw a sharp drop in support due to its participation in government. While Fidesz maintained its grip on power, it was challenged by a new opposition party, losing two seats in the EP.
In Italy, all the parties in the centre-right governing coalition (FdI, FI, Lega) improved their results compared to the 2022 general elections, thus enjoying a “honeymoon” period of the government elected two years before, reflecting a consolidation of the approval of the Meloni government at the domestic level. Meloni was heavily involved in the European campaign, enabling her party to benefit from her relatively intact popularity as the head of government since September 2022. In Croatia, the right-wing populist DP was already in the position of kingmaker after coming third in the national parliamentary elections in April 2024 and becoming part of the governing coalition. In the EP elections, the DP maintained its support, thus reaffirming its leverage in domestic and European politics.
Elsewhere, populists in government lost ground. In Hungary, despite Fidesz’s victory in the election, a new challenger, Tisza, posed significant challenges, attracting former Fidesz party member Péter Magyar and gaining seven seats in the EP, while Fidesz lost two. Although Fidesz came in first in the EP elections with 44.82% of the votes, the result was considered the party’s worst performance in an EP election. In Finland, the Finns Party paid for its participation in the government and fell back sharply, losing 6 points compared to 2019. The elections revealed voters’ deep distrust towards the government, in which the Finns Party had supported significant austerity measures and cuts to public spending through its leader and finance minister, Riikka Purra. In Sweden, the 2024 European Parliament election was the first election in which the Sweden Democrats participated while having formal influence over the government. The party performed the worst in mobilizing voters in the week leading up to the election, and its support for the centre-right government could possibly explain such an electoral setback.
Political discontent as a driver of populist voting
In countries where populists were in the opposition, these parties benefited from political discontent with national governments dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, the energy and high inflation crisis, and the many political and economic ramifications of the war in Ukraine.
In Spain, Vox’s electoral campaign was essentially framed as a referendum against Sánchez. In France, both the RN and LFI sought to capitalize on political discontent by making the election a referendum for or against Emmanuel Macron and the government. In Belgium, populist radical parties, both left and right, positioned themselves as political outsiders and presented themselves as the alternative vote to an unpopular federal government. In Cyprus, ELAM strongly campaigned against corruption, entering the political scene as the new political force that would hold traditional parties accountable. In Portugal, Chega’s leader, André Ventura, nominated himself as ‘the real leader of the opposition’. In Germany, after the initial rally-round-the-flag effect following Russia’s fresh attack on Ukraine, the government’s popularity began to decline as a result of high inflation and worries about (energy) security, resulting in a protest vote in favour of populist actors such as the AfD and BSW.
Similarly, in Greece, there was a strong anti-government protest vote, with the key message of the election being political discontent and a general feeling of economic malaise. In Poland, PiS (now in opposition) criticized the government’s opposing measures to stop illegal migration adopted by the previous PiS government. In Romania, AUR has criticized the government and mainstream parties for being subservient to the EU and betraying national interests. In an interview for a Russian newspaper, the leader of the more radical SOS party declared that Romania is essentially a ‘colony within the EU.’
Populist competition
Another factor of varying populist performances was changes in the populist political scene across Europe and new patterns of competition between populists. The recent wave of populism has seen new parties challenge the more established players (Ivaldi, 2023). Such divisions began to appear in countries such as Austria and France in the late 1990s, and more recently, populist competition has been observed in a number of European countries but in different configurations.
While countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, Bulgaria and Italy have a variety of populist actors distributed across the political spectrum, there has also been an increasing fragmentation of the populist right in a number of countries in recent years, with two or three of those parties competing with one another for votes, possibly affecting the balance of forces within that party family.
Such a split of the populist right is illustrated in Spain, which has seen the emergence of a new populist radical-right party, Se Acabó La Fiesta (SALF), competing with Vox, which partly accounts for the latter’s loss of support in the 2024 EP elections when compared with the 2023 general elections. In the Netherlands, there has been an increase in parties competing for the populist vote, forcing these parties to profile themselves not only vis-à-vis mainstream parties but also each other. In Poland, the PiS lost 12 points and 8 seats in five years, suffering from competition from Confederation (Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość), which established itself at the heart of the Polish right. In Hungary, Orbán’s party is facing competition from the far-right Our Homeland Movement (MHM). In Romania, AUR is competing for votes with the splinter party SOS. France now has two electorally relevant populist radical-right parties competing with one another, namely, Marine Le Pen’s RN and Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête! In Germany, the AfD is also facing competition on its left flank from the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) on similar anti-immigration policies. In Denmark, the recently formed Denmark’s Democrats compete directly with the Danish People’s Party. As one final example, in Italy, there has been a clear shift in the balance of power between the Lega and FdI, with Meloni’s party taking over the right-wing bloc.
While populist competition essentially concerns the populist right, Ireland provides an interesting case of populist competition to the left of the political spectrum. As the Irish chapter shows, Aontú was in a position to soak up some of Sinn Féin’s collapsing coalition, and it did so by calling more clearly for controls on immigration and by opposing the EU migration pact.
Political profile and candidates
Other factors of variations in populist party performances in the 2024 European elections may be found in the political profile of those parties and lead candidates, as well as in specific campaign events that may have dampened or increased support for those parties.
While some of those parties have taken a path towards normalization, others have maintained a more radical ideology and discourse that may alienate moderate voters. In France, while Le Pen’s RN has been continuing its strategy of “de-demonization” in order to achieve governmental credibility and detoxify its far-right reputation, Zemmour’s Reconquête has come closer to the old extreme right. In Bulgaria, GERB has been moderating its populist appeal, while Vazrazhdane has bet on increasing polarization and extreme right-wing and populist rhetoric. In Ireland, Sinn Féin has transitioned to become a more credible party of government, taking more mainstream positions on a number of issues. In Italy, despite their historical roots in the neo-fascist milieu, Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia have successfully achieved their transformation into a party of government, taking over Forza Italia’s role as the dominant party within the right-wing bloc. As discussed earlier, other parties, such as the Dutch PVV and the Sweden Democrats, have recently undergone a modernization process to increase their coalition potential and increasingly win over the moderate electorate.
In countries like Spain and Finland, on the other hand, the campaign of the 2024 European elections was dominated by public concerns over the rise of the far right in Europe and its possible impact on future alliances in the European Parliament. In Finland, in particular, people’s fear of the rising far right in Europe was a salient theme in campaign debates, which may have contributed to diminished electoral support for the Finns Party.
As clearly illustrated in the country chapters, the choice of lead candidates in the 2024 European elections somewhat reflected such variation in the political pedigree of populist parties. In Denmark, for example, the DF nominated hardliner and former MEP Morten Messerschmidt despite his being still under investigation for fraud in the so-called MELD and FELD case concerning the misuse of EU funds. In Germany, the controversies surrounding the party’s ‘re-migration’ project and Maximilian Krah’s statements about the SS clearly outraged some voters. In Italy, the Lega’s campaign was further stirred by the controversial candidacy of General Vannacci, known for his homophobic, racist and sexist comments. In Portugal, Chega’s lead candidate, António Tânger Corrêa, was strongly criticized for endorsing conspiracy theories such as the ‘great replacement’ and for his using of antisemitic tropes, like accusing the Mossad of forewarning American Jews of terrorist attacks on 9/11. In Finland, the most successful Finns Party candidate, Sebastian Tynkkynen, represented the provocative and radical faction of the party. Another example of strong populist rhetoric and style is found in Romania, where former AUR leader and now a member of SOS Romania, Diana Șoșoacă, is taking her populist rhetoric to new extremes by using tough homophobic, ultra-nationalist, xenophobic and anti-European messages.
Finally, we should mention specific events that may have altered the course of the 2024 elections. One such example is the failed assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico of SMER, which took place in mid-May 2024, shocking the country and impacting the campaign and elections both directly and indirectly, as both SMER and SNS blamed the opposition and independent media for the attempt, claiming it resulted from a polarized political environment allegedly created by them.
At times, political scandals punctuated the 2024 EP election campaign. In Sweden, the election campaign took a new turn when, about a month prior to the election, it was revealed that the SD’s communications department was hosting a so-called troll factory in which anonymous social media accounts were spreading disinformation and derogatory portrayals of other politicians.
Populist parties and groups in the European Parliament
The 2024 European elections have delivered a new European Parliament whose centre of gravity has clearly shifted to the right and where the presence of populist actors has increased.
The mainstream forces of the European Parliament – the EPP, S&D, and Renew – have maintained a majority with just over 55% of the seats in the new parliament. The conservative right united within the EPP and reaffirmed its dominance within the European institutions, both in the EP and the Council, with 11 seats compared to only 4 for the left and 5 for Renew. Despite the economic crisis, the European left was unable to establish itself as an alternative force during the election. Finally, the Greens and Renew’s liberals emerged as the big losers of the June 2024 elections, with 53 and 77 seats, respectively, a sharp decline compared to 2019 (70 and 98 seats, respectively) (see Table 3).
Table 3. Political groups in the European Parliament as of July 2024
Political groups
Number of seats
Share of seats (%)
EPP–Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)
188
26.11
S&D–Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament
136
18.89
PfE–Patriots for Europe
84
11.67
ECR–European Conservatives and Reformists Group
78
10.83
Renew Europe–Renew Europe Group
77
10.69
Greens/EFA–Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
53
7.36
The Left–The Left group in the European Parliament–GUE/NGL
Following the elections, the centre of gravity of the new parliament shifted to the right. In addition to the strong performances of conservative parties, the European election results confirmed the anticipated rise of populist and Eurosceptic right-wing parties.
However, these parties remain divided in the European Parliament, where they are currently distributed across three different groups – namely, the ECR (78 seats), PfE (49), and ESN (25), which have replaced the two previous right-wing populist groups, i.e., ECR and Identity and Democracy. Some populist parties are also found among the Non-attached (NA) (see Table 4).
Table 4. Populist parties by political groups in the 2024 European Parliament
Country
Type
Party
Seats won
% of vote
EP Group
Bulgaria
Centrist
Ima takav narod
ITN
1
6.20
ECR
Croatia
Extreme Right
Domovinski pokret
DP
1
8.84
ECR
Cyprus
Extreme Right
Ethniko Laiko Metopo
ELAM
1
11.19
ECR
Denmark
Radical Right
Danmarksdemokraterne
DD
1
7.39
ECR
Estonia
Radical Right
Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond
EKRE
1
14.86
ECR
Finland
Radical Right
Perussuomalaiset/Finns
PS/Finns
1
7.60
ECR
Greece
Radical Right
Elliniki Lysi
EL
2
9.30
ECR
Italy
Radical Right
Fratelli d’Italia
FdI
24
28.76
ECR
Luxembourg
Right
Alternativ Demokratesch Reformpartei (Alternative Democratic Reform Party)
ADR
1
11.76
ECR
Poland
Radical Right
Prawo i Sprawiedliwość
PiS
20
36.16
ECR
Romania
Radical Right
Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor
AUR
6
14.95
ECR
Sweden
Radical Right
Sverigedemokraterna
SD
3
13.19
ECR
Bulgaria
Centrist
Graždani za evropejsko razvitie na Bǎlgarija
GERB
5
24.30
EPP
Italy
Right
Forza Italia
FI
8
9.58
EPP
Netherlands
Centrist
BoerBurgerBeweging
BBB
2
5.40
EPP
Slovenia
Radical Right
Slovenska demokratska stranka
SDS
4
30.65
EPP
Bulgaria
Extreme Right
Vazrazhdane
Vazrazhdane
3
14.40
ESN
Czech Republic
Radical Right
Svoboda a přímá demokracie
SPD
1
5.73
ESN
France
Radical Right
Reconquête!
REC
5
5.46
ESN
Germany
Radical Right
Alternative für Deutschland
AfD
15
15.89
ESN
Hungary
Extreme Right
Mi Hazánk Mozgalom
MHM
1
6.75
ESN
Lithuania
Extreme Right
Tautos ir teisingumo sąjunga (The People and Justice Union)
TTS
1
5.45
ESN
Poland
Extreme Right
Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość
Konf
3
3,19
ESN
Slovakia
Extreme Right
Hnutie Republika
Hnutie Republika
2
12.53
ESN
Germany
Left
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht
BSW
6
6.17
NA
Greece
Radical Right
Dimokratikó Patriotikó Kínima
NIKI
1
4.37
NA
Greece
Left
Plefsi Eleftherias
PE
1
3.40
NA
Greece
Left
Kommounistiko Komma Elladas
KKE
2
9.30
NA
Poland
Extreme Right
Nowa Nadzieja
Nowa Nadzieja
2
2.79
NA
Poland
Extreme Right
Ruch Narodowy
Ruch Narodowy
1
2.57
NA
Romania
Radical Right
S.O.S. România
SOS RO
2
5.04
NA
Slovakia
Left
SMER – sociálna demokracia
SMER-SD
5
24.77
NA
Spain
Radical Right
Se Acabó La Fiesta
SALF
3
4.59
NA
Austria
Radical Right
Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs
FPÖ
6
25.36
PfE
Belgium
Radical Right
Vlaams Belang
VB
3
22.94
PfE
Czech Republic
Centrist
Akce nespokojených občanů
ANO 2011
7
26.14
PfE
Czech Republic
Radical Right
Přísaha a Motoristé
Přísaha a Motoristé
2
10.26
PfE
Denmark
Radical Right
Dansk Folkeparti
DF
1
6.37
PfE
France
Radical Right
Rassemblement national
RN
30
31.47
PfE
Greece
Radical Right
Foni Logikis
FL
1
3.04
PfE
Hungary
Radical Right
Fidesz-Magyar Polgári Szövetség
Fidesz
11
44.69
PfE
Italy
Radical Right
Lega
Lega
8
8.98
PfE
Latvia
Radical Right
Latvija pirmajā vietā
LPV
1
6.23
PfE
Netherlands
Radical Right
Partij voor de Vrijheid
PVV
6
16.97
PfE
Portugal
Radical Right
Chega
Chega
2
9.79
PfE
Spain
Radical Right
Vox
Vox
6
9.63
PfE
Bulgaria
Centrist
Prodalzhavame Promjanata-Democratichna Bulgaria
PP-BD
2
14.45
Renew(PP)EPP(DB)
Belgium
Left
Parti du Travail de Belgique-Partij van de arbeid
PTB–PVDA
2
11.76
The Left
Denmark
Left
Enhedslisten – De Rød-Grønne
Enhl., Ø
1
7.04
The Left
France
Left
La France Insoumise
LFI
9
9.87
The Left
Germany
Left
Die Linke
Die Linke
3
2.74
The Left
Greece
Left
Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás
SYRIZA
4
14.92
The Left
Ireland
Left
Sinn Féin
SF
2
11.14
The Left
Italy
Centrist
Movimento 5 Stelle
M5S
8
9.98
The Left
Spain
Left
Podemos
Podemos
2
3.28
The Left
Sweden
Left
Vänsterpartiet
V
2
11.04
The Left
Source: Compiled by the authors based on election results data from the European Parliament (https://results.elections.europa.eu/en/). Notes: Blue indicates radical-right populist; pink radical-left populist; and white, centrist populist.
Such a reconfiguration of populist groups in the EP reflects a wide array of factors, from national and geopolitical issues to party strategies and political profiles and mutual populist exclusion. The case of Hungarian Fidesz illustrates such complexity. Despite one of the most significant victories across the EU, Orbán’s party faced the challenge of allying with others on the European scene. Initially, Orbán strived to join Meloni’s ECR but ultimately rejected this option to avoid coalescing with the anti-Hungarian AUR in Romania. Additionally, there was a cleavage on the Russia-Ukraine War with Meloni and Jarosław Kaczyński but also smaller members of the ECR from Finland, Latvia and Lithuania, holding diametrically opposed views to Orbán’s. After weeks of negotiations, Orbán succeeded in forming a new coalition based on the former Identity and Democracy group, initially with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Czech ANO, which was ultimately led by the French National Rally (RN). Although the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group is the third-largest faction in the European Parliament, it could not secure any significant positions, and thus, Fidesz’s political isolation continues.
Along with the new PfE and previous ECR groups, other right-wing populist parties have found political shelter in the newly formed Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group. These are essentially extreme right-wing parties such as Our Homeland in Hungary, Reconquête! in France, Hnutie Republika in Slovakia, the Bulgarian Vazrazhdane and Czech SPD. The German AfD leads the group following its expulsion from the former Identity and Democracy faction in the EP in the lead-up to the European elections in May 2024, which was the result of the controversial statements made by the AfD’s lead candidate Maximilian Krah about members of the Nazi SS. The ESN currently has 25 members in the EP.
With a few notable exceptions, such as Fico’s SMER in Slovakia and the German BSW, parties of the populist left are all found in the Left group in the European Parliament. The Left currently has 46 seats, which represents a slight increase on its previous share of 37 seats in the outgoing parliament. After talks of creating a new group with the German BSW, the Italian M5S has joined the European Left, which, as the country analysis has shown, is consistent with the ideological and strategic move to the left by the party in Italian politics.
Finally, somewhat reflecting the diversity in their ideological profile, centrist populist parties are scattered across different groups. The Czech ANO has joined the new populist radical-right PfE along with Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary and Le Pen’s RN in France. Other centrist populists, such as the Dutch BBB and GERB in Bulgaria, are found in the right-wing conservative EPP, while the Bulgarian ITN has joined Meloni’s ECR. ANO’s decision to leave the liberal Renew group and join the PfE alongside Fidesz and FPÖ poses a curious example. Since the PfE has been excluded from the allocation of posts in the EP committees and subject to cordon sanitaire by the EP majority, ANO is likely to have much less leverage in the new European Parliament.
The impact of populism on EU politics
With the increased representation of right-wing populists in the European Parliament, we can expect a growing impact on the political debate and policy decisions. We have already seen such impact in areas such as migration policy, where the ECR and the ID have already left their mark with policies on outsourcing immigration control through a series of agreements with neighbouring nations, particularly in Northern Africa, and with the securitization of the migration debate, framing it as a security threat with a primary focus on border control and deportations, as opposed an effective system of burden-sharing and protection of human rights for refugees and asylum seekers.
Climate change is another area where we may see rollback and obstructionism. Although the Green Deal has been finalized, implementation may be at risk, particularly in areas such as phasing out combustion engines, restoration of nature reserves and green energy investment. Such rollback is likely to impede the ability of the EU to act as a global leader in what is pronouncedly a transnational policy issue.
EU enlargement is another topic that may take the backseat, both when it comes to the Western Balkans, as well as Ukraine. Parties such as PVV, RN, FPÖ and AfD are strongly opposing further enlargement, as are many of the right-wing populists in Central and Eastern Europe. Exceptions are PiS and AUR and their support for EU membership for Ukraine and Moldova, respectively, due to historical and ethnic factors.
Foreign policy is expected to be a point of major contention for the far right in the EP, although the expected impact may be overestimated, at least in the short term. The 19 September 2024 resolution adopted by the European Parliament on lifting the restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against legitimate military targets on Russian territory presents a case in point. The resolution was passed with 425 votes in favour, 131 against and 63 abstentions. The EP majority, including the EPP, S&D, and Renew Europe, voted in support, with additional support from many members of the Green/EFA and the ECR. Dissenting voices came from the PfE and the ESN, but also from ECR’s FdI, as well as French leftists and Irish, Austrian and Maltese MEPs across the political spectrum reflecting their countries’ neutral (non-NATO) status.
The impact of the populist left is likely to have a more limited impact, given its modest representation, although there may be issues where we may see the populist left and right coalesce, such as the war in Ukraine, for example, or aspects of welfare policy. The BSW is a good illustration of this merging of left and right populism on specific policy topics.
The reconfiguration of the extreme right in the European Parliament reaffirms prior tendencies and analysis (i.e., that despite the increased representation of radical-right actors, they continue to be divided and unable to act as a united front). Hence, we can expect more ad hoc coalitions on specific issues rather than united positions and policy proposals. What should not be neglected, although, is the legitimation of the radical-right discourse and its impact on both European and domestic politics. We have clearly seen this effect in Austria, where after winning the EP elections, the FPÖ increased its support even more, winning the national legislative elections. While the current EP majority may be able to effectively exercise cordon sanitaire over both the far right and the far left, an overall shift to the right, both in terms of rhetoric and policy, is already a reality. This prolonged tendency has the potential to contribute to the future growth of the far right in the subsequent European Parliament, as well as to the continued mainstreaming of far-right policies, as the current majority is trying to push through its priorities. The inclusion of Rafaele Fitto (FdI-ECR) as the Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms in the new European Commission signals such a tendency and is but one instance of attempts to draw the ECR closer.
(*) Gilles Ivaldi is researcher in politics at CEVIPOF and professor at Sciences Po Paris. His research interests include French politics, parties and elections, and thecomparative study of populism and the radical right in Europe and the United States. Gilles Ivaldi is the author of De Le Pen à Trump: le défi populiste (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2019), The 2017 French Presidential Elections. A political Reformation?, 2018, Palgrave MacMillan, with Jocelyn Evans. He has recently co-edited The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe, European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), 2023, with Emilia Zankina. His research has appeared in journals such as Electoral Studies, the International Journal of Forecasting, Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, French Politics, Revue Française de Science Politique or Political Research Quarterly.
(**) Emilia Zankina is an Associate Professor in Political Science and interim Vice Provost for Global Engagement at Temple University and, since 2020, has served as the Dean of Temple University Rome. She holds a PhD in International Affairs and a Certificate in Advanced East European Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines East European politics, populism, civil service reform, and gender in political representation. She has published in high-ranking international journals, including West European Politics, Politics and Gender, East European Politics, Problems of Post-communism, and Representation, as well as academic presses such as the ECPR Press, Indiana University Press, and others. She frequently serves as an expert adviser for Freedom House, V-Democracy, and projects for the European Commission. In the past, Zankina has served as Provost of the American University in Bulgaria, Associate Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Managing Editor of East European Politics and Societies.
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This report examines the landscape of the far right in Romania within the context of the 2024 European Parliament elections. Two Romanian far-right parties secured seats in the European Parliament: the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and SOS Romania (SOS), receiving 14.9% and 5% of the valid votes, respectively. Both parties emphasize the defence of Romanian sovereignty and promote nativist and authoritarian rhetoric. However, over the past year, the AUR has increasingly incorporated neoconservative elements into its platform. Consequently, the 2024 campaign has revealed notable differences in programs, candidates, styles of political campaigning and alliance strategies.
Keywords: far right; Romania; European Union; conservatism; sovereignty; political alliances
By Sorina Soare*(Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy)
Introduction
In the December 2020 legislative elections in Romania, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) performed surprisingly well despite being established only a few months prior, in September 2019. Since then, the AUR has increasingly positioned itself as a significant opposition party, engaging critically with the state of Romanian democracy. Central to its political platform is the defence of Romanian sovereignty. The party utilizes populism to mobilize support, often framing society in stark terms: the pure and genuine Romanian people (‘us’) versus the corrupt elites (‘them’), namely, mainstream political parties, cosmopolitan intellectuals, NGOs and similar entities. This division is further reinforced by nativist rhetoric, which emphasizes the organic nature of the Romanian community and underscores various threats posed by non-native elements. While Western societies often view these threats as originating from migrants, in Romania, ethnic minorities such as Hungarians are frequently singled out in this narrative. As such, the AUR’s ideological stance incorporates nativism, authoritarianism and populism, which aligns with what Mudde (2007) identifies as a populist radical right party.
The AUR’s radical dimension (Pirro, 2023) manifests in its opposition to key features of liberal democracy, particularly aspects related to personal liberties. However, the AUR does not seek to undermine democratic institutions but rather draws an ideological boundary with the liberal pillar of liberal democracy, delineating the frontier between the in-group and the out-group (Kauth & King, 2020). Specifically, the in-group comprises Romanian natives and their families, guided by the Christian faith and traditions (Program of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, 2020).
Political parties are not monolithic entities; they often accommodate multiple political projects within one organization. The AUR exemplifies such diversity, where the original dual leadership represented at least two compatible ideological strands: one primarily oriented towards a unionist platform integrated with populist radical right features; the other focused on conservatism as a cultural, social and political vision opposing cosmopolitan and liberal values, while emphasizing traditional forces such as nature, God, and historical heritage (Drolet & Williams, 2018). A significant convergence point between these strands is their opposition to aspects of the established socio–cultural order characteristic of post-communist liberal democracy. In this context, the European Union (EU) is directly targeted as a source of disruptive values for the Romanian organic community. Criticisms are focused on a wide range of policies and norms perceived to limit national sovereignty, such as the recognition of homosexual families and restrictions on personal liberties like the use of cash.
Beyond the AUR, the landscape of Romanian politics features various actors challenging the status quo. One such prominent figure is Diana Șoșoacă, who emerged as an extremely vocal political leader. Elected on the AUR list in the 2020 legislative elections, Șoșoacă was later expelled and joined SOS Romania, a party whose name viscerally reflects its core narrative: the urgent need to save Romania. Nativist, authoritarian and populist dimensions resonate in her discourse, echoing the need to defend national sovereignty against the EU and other foreign interests. However, there are differences in intensity and content compared to the AUR. Her communication style is characterized by a highly confrontational manner and a narrative of perpetual crisis. Șoșoacă’s unconventional performance serves as a substitute for party organization and autonomous political identity, making both her political style and messages potentially disruptive to the democratic status quo. From this perspective, SOS Romania embodies the potential for extremism.
Romania’s political landscape appears complex in the aftermath of the 2024 European Parliament elections. While it is acknowledged as a bastion of political stability and pro-EU sentiment, with the coalition of mainstream parties – the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) – securing a significant victory with 48.5% of the valid votes (See Table 1 below), there is also notable representation of MEPs from parties advocating radical right stances. This report analyses the historical trajectories of two Romanian parties embodying such views, scrutinizing their campaigns for the EP, evaluating their electoral platforms and profiling their candidates.
The far right strikes back: Romanian insights
Following a period of dormancy in the early 2000s, the far right (Pirro, 2023) made a significant resurgence in Romania’s political landscape. Initially operating outside parliament, the Romanian far right gained considerable momentum following the 2020 legislative elections. While the AUR secured substantial parliamentary representation, it also became a focal point for nativist, authoritarian and populist discourses. In parallel, the AUR has faced several internal challenges, marked by the departure of key figures like Șoșoacă, who has since become the leading figure in the rival SOS Romania party.
Additionally, other members of the AUR have splintered off to establish their own political entities. For example, Smaranda Lup, once influential within the AUR’s Cluj branch, cofounded the RO-EXIT party. This new party explicitly advocates for Romania’s withdrawal not only from the EU but also from organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, despite these developments, the electoral potential of these smaller parties remains relatively limited.
Two projects in one
Founded out of a blend of activism, AUR’s founding leadership focused on two main lines of mobilization associated with the political figures George Simion and Claudiu Târziu, who jointly led the party from 2019 to 2022 (Soare & Tufiș, 2023). Since the early 2000s, George Simion has been deeply engaged in grassroots activism, particularly focusing on anti-communist and pro-union causes. Over time, he emerged as the primary spokesperson for the party. Meanwhile, Claudiu Târziu leveraged his journalism background and connections within right-wing networks. Through his blog, Târziu consistently advocated for preserving Christian conservative values within contemporary Romanian democracy. Simion and Târziu jointly advocated for the defence of Romanian identity, sharply underlining its historical heritage as a bulwark against perceived threats from both domestic and international influences.
These principles were fundamental to the AUR’s platform, which was organized around four conservative pillars: faith, nation, family and liberty. Their platform aimed to counter what they viewed as the erosion of traditional values since the communist era. Integral to their approach was a robust anti-establishment stance and a communication strategy that fostered closeness with the Romanian populace. For instance, AUR voters have been invited to participate in personal milestones such as George Simion’s marriage, which aimed to strengthen their connection with supporters on a personal level.
Against this backdrop, two distinct roles emerged among the AUR’s leading figures. George Simion embodies a functional role akin to a modern tribunus plebis, an elected representative tasked with vocally defending Romanians against corrupt and abusive politicians. Conversely, Claudiu Târziu pursues an intellectual specialization in close collaboration with prominent conservative intellectuals such as Sorin Lavric.
Looking for international/European partners
Târziu’s role as the party’s intellectual leader involved networking with conservative and far-right parties across Europe and globally. This role became pivotal in preparing for the 2024 EP elections, with the AUR strategically targeting membership in the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. This strategy received support from grassroots engagements between the AUR extraterritorial branches and local politicians from parties like Vox and Brothers of Italy (Soare & Tufiș, 2023). Concurrently, the party bolstered official political networking efforts, exemplified by George Simion’s participation in Italy’s Atreju festival organized by Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI). While some encounters, such as Simion’s reportedly contentious reception at Vox’s Madrid meeting in January 2022 – purportedly due to objections from Fidesz over anti-Hungarian statements – were framed in the media as setbacks, these engagements remained integral to AUR’s strategic outreach.
By October 2022, the AUR had established the Mihai Eminescu Conservative Political Studies Institute in Bucharest. As the institute’s director, Claudiu Târziu expanded its influence through political networking and international conferences. These gatherings hosted a spectrum of international political representatives and intellectuals, providing a platform to articulate conservative visions for Europe and advocate for national sovereignty. One notable event, titled ‘Make Europe Great Again’, took place in Bucharest in April 2024. Explicitly referencing Donald Trump’s ‘MAGA’ slogan, the conference aimed to address concerns about Europe’s perceived decline. It featured prominent intellectuals, politicians, journalists and activists from Europe, Israel, the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Cristian Terheș, a former MEP with the ECR group, played a pivotal role in this context. In December 2023, he joined the Romanian National Conservative Party (PNCR) and soon became its president. The PNCR subsequently forged alliances with the Republican Party of Romania, the Peasant National Alliance, the National Identity Force and the National Renaissance Alliance, forming a coalition with AUR for the European Parliament elections. The gate towards the ECR was definitely open.
The topics of reference
Since its electoral breakthrough in 2020, the AUR has championed the defence of Romania’s political, economic and sociocultural interests. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the AUR emerged as a prominent advocate for personal liberties, staunchly opposing mandatory vaccination, with some representatives endorsing anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Additionally, the party has criticized European bureaucracy, portraying mainstream parties as subservient to the EU and betraying national interests. AUR has also voiced concerns over EU values, particularly regarding LGBTQ+ rights, advocating for the traditional family as a defence against what they perceive as European intrusions.
Simultaneously, the AUR has consistently emphasized the protection of Romanian communities in neighbouring states and the rights of nonresident economic migrants. Party representatives regularly accuse the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) of being a ‘chauvinistic entity’ that promotes ‘terrorism against Romanians’ while also criticizing mainstream parties for their perceived political subservience (Fati, 2024).
In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the AUR has taken nuanced positions. While denouncing Russia’s interference as a significant obstacle to unification with Moldova, the party also criticizes Ukrainian discrimination against ethnic minorities, particularly Romanians.
Emerging competitor: The origins of the SOS Romania party
Despite its young age, the AUR has become a fertile breeding ground for more radical and extremist platforms, exemplified in primis by Șoșoacă, a Romanian lawyer whose political career was boosted by her election as a Romanian senator on the AUR lists in 2020. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Șoșoacă became one of the most well-known faces of the antivaccine movement, regularly criticizing the government’s defensive measures (Arun, 2024). More generally, Șoșoacă has pushed populist rhetoric to new extremes with tough homophobic, ultra-nationalist, xenophobic and anti-European messages. She proudly presents herself as the first Romanian MP to advocate for a ‘Ro-exit’, stating, “Since we have been in the European Union, we have ruined ourselves! And, under these circumstances, all I can say is RO-Exit! If you relinquish all industry to the European Union, That’s what you did with the PNRR [i.e., National Recovery and Resilience Plan, supported by the EU’s post-COVID-19 recovery fund]! You made fun of all the state companies in Romania! You sacrificed our sovereignty for this! Never! The Romanian Constitution must never be subordinated to EU treaties. Shame on those who have betrayed Romania and its people!” (SOS Romania, 2022).
Her theatrical, patriotic speeches are characterized by aggressive gestures and coarse vocabulary, in which she regularly denounces the ruling parties and emphasizes her proximity to the people. She regularly dresses in traditional popular costumes and voices concerns for Romanian traditions and values at risk of extinction. Șoșoacă has also emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of pro-Russian stances in Romania. She was declared ‘Personality of the Year’ in 2021 by Sputnik, a Russian broadcaster and purportedly sought to promote her messages on Vkontakte, the Russian social media platform (Arun, 2024). In March 2022, Șoșoacă and other MPs paid a high-profile visit to the Russian embassy in Bucharest to present a position of neutrality regarding the ongoing war. One year later, she sparked significant controversy with an interview given to a Russian publication, in which she claimed that Romania is essentially a ‘colony’ within the European Union. She further asserted that Europeans and Americans aim to destroy Russia and argued that Ukraine illegally occupies territories, including some that rightfully belong to Romania (Despa & Vovesz, 2024).
Regarding the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups taking place in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, Șoșoacă distinguished herself from the establishment by not participating in the pro-Israel rally organized in Bucharest in the aftermath of Hamas’ 7 October attack. Her position was motivated as less connected to foreign policy choices and more about her fear of drawing Romania into the war. Furthermore, media reports have highlighted her controversial remarks, including instances of antisemitism. For instance, during a joint session of parliament dedicated to the Day of Solidarity and Friendship between Romania and Israel in May 2024, Șoșoacă complained that this day should serve to commemorate Romanian martyrs from communist prisons, criticizing what she viewed as an incorrect focus on antisemitism. She protested that Romania saved over 400,000 Jews during the Second World War (Cotidianul, 2024).
The pursuit of consensus for the European Parliament elections
The AUR presented a strong list of 43 candidates for the European Parliament elections in June 2024, with Cristian Terheș and Claudiu Târziu featuring prominently at the top. The list included notable figures such as Gheorghe Piperea, known for bringing large class-action lawsuits against commercial banks over abusive credit contract commissions, and Georgiana Teodorescu, a vocal advocate for traditional family values. Also included were Adrian Axinia, an AUR MP closely associated with George Simion and serving as one of AUR’s vice presidents. The list comprised various AUR members, lawyers, entrepreneurs, Monica Iagăr, a former athlete, the actress Mara Nicolescu and several academics.
Although the extent of its territorial organization within Romania or abroad remains unclear, SOS Romania succeeded in fielding 43 candidates for the European Parliament elections, including lawyers, a journalist, local councillors and other party members. The first two positions on the party list were occupied by Șoșoacă herself, followed by Luis Lazarus, a journalist trained at the TV stations owned by the controversial former journalist and populist politician Dan Diaconescu.
Regarding the mood of Romanian citizens in the context of the European elections, the Parliament’s Spring 2024 Eurobarometer reveals strong interest among Romanian citizens, fully aligned with the European average (EP Spring 2024 Survey). However, Romanian citizens express a more critical and nuanced view towards different aspects of the European arena, particularly concerning the EU’s impact on their daily lives. While almost three-quarters of European citizens state that EU actions impact their daily lives, only 65% of Romanians share this opinion. Similarly, although a large majority of Europeans (71%) agree that their country benefits from EU membership, only 65% of Romanians share this view. On the eve of the election, this indicates that there is a fertile breeding ground for parties voicing concerns and criticisms of the EU.
The AUR’s campaign focus
Since its electoral breakthrough in 2020, the AUR has been an ardent advocate in defence of Romania’s political, economic and sociocultural interests. Unsurprisingly, the party’s campaign for the EP elections emphasized Romania’s Christian identity and safeguarding the family as the cornerstone of society. The party’s platform notably advocated for the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the EU, viewing it as a strategic step towards uniting the Romanian states. AUR’s 11-point manifesto addressed a wide array of issues, from EU relations to specific sectors such as youth, poverty and environmental policies. Conducted concurrently with the local elections, the AUR’s EP election campaign echoed Euroscepticism, targeting specific policies rather than the EU project itself.
AUR has a dedicated website (https://europarlamentari2024.ro/candidati-aur/) and a Facebook page (Europarlamentari AUR, 2024) to disseminate its message. Central to the AUR’s European vision was a staunch opposition to cosmopolitanism and globalism, advocating instead for European integration rooted in sovereign national identities. The party endorsed Poland’s model of preserving national languages, cultures and traditions as exemplary.
Among its key policy points, AUR emphasized the need to stimulate the return of Romanian migrants by combating poverty and facilitating access to European funds for small rural businesses. A recurrent argument was the reduction of administrative rigidity and an open fight against the double standards that penalize Eastern member states.
During the campaign, AUR candidates urged Romanian voters to choose between defending Romanian sovereignty or succumbing to what they termed ‘Romanian vassalage.’ Symbolically, AUR’s program insisted that politics should reflect the general will, specifically the will of national voters: “Politics in Romania must be done at home, not in Brussels or in Moscow. Although alliances with our strategic partners, both European and international, must be consolidated, AUR wants a different approach, one of alliances for the benefit of the country, not for the interests of the parties” (AUR’s Plan for the European Parliament, 2024).
SOS Romania party’s campaign
SOS Romania’s campaign primarily focused on Șoșoacă, highlighting concrete measures outlined in a very concise program. The program advocated for Romanians’ rights to continue using traditional energy sources like firewood and natural gas, reopening coal mines, and demanded compensation from the European Commission for the costs and side effects associated with COVID-19 vaccines. The program vigorously denounced perceived breaches of national sovereignty and criticized what it viewed as double standards in EU product regulations while emphasizing the protection of Romanian farmers and agriculture.
Aligned with AUR, SOS Romania advocated resisting digital or centralized financial systems (e.g., supporting the continued use of cash for consumer payments) and, in general, supported simpler fiscal regulations from Brussels. Șoșoacă also called for Romania to adopt neutrality in geopolitical matters, opposing the country’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict. The candidate and the party program staunchly defended the supremacy of Romania’s constitution over any international or European institution. SOS Romania also championed Christian values and traditions, opposed imposed globalism and the LGBTQ+ agenda, and advocated for prohibitive measures against gender education, sex change operations and same-sex marriage in Romania.
The electoral results
In the 2024 European Parliamentary elections, the far right emerged as the second political force in Romania, closely trailing the coalition of PSD and PNL (Table 1). Combining the votes for AUR and SOS Romania, these two parties collectively secured almost one-third of the votes. While AUR’s result represents a contraction from the 20% voting intentions registered in the preceding year, SOS Romania’s final outcome came as a surprise. Initial exit polls had placed the party below the threshold, a trend confirmed by early official national results. The turnout among nonresident voters was the decisive factor in overturning the initial forecasts.
Table 1. 2024 European election results for Romania
Party
Votes
Share of votes (%)
MEPs (out of 33)
Parliamentary group affiliations (number of MEPs affiliating)
Interestingly, despite their focus on unification processes, the mobilization of AUR and SOS was notably lower in the Republic of Moldova, particularly in comparison to mainstream parties. Nonresident voters awarded AUR the highest number of votes in five countries with substantial migrant communities: Spain, Belgium, France, Austria and the United States. Șoșoacă’s leadership notably attracted voter support in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy (Central Electoral Bureau, 2024). The election results thereby validated AUR and SOS as the primary opposition forces. SOS Romania secured as many MEPs as the liberal Save Romania Union, while AUR doubled the representation of the United Right Alliance.
Benefiting from extensive pre-election networking efforts and Terheș’ previous affiliation with the ECR, AUR MEPs have joined this group. The official announcement was made ten days after the elections, coinciding with the news that the ECR had become the third-largest group in the new European Parliament. On the same day, Hungary’s Fidesz announced via X that it no longer sought to join the ECR, citing explicit concerns over AUR’s extreme anti-Hungarian positions.
Notably, AUR’s inclusion in the ECR group came with an agreement to support the Ukrainian cause. This agreement is particularly significant given that George Simion has been deemed persona non grata in both Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova due to his irredentist views. Șoșoacă and Lazarus, the two SOS MEPs, remained isolated from alliances at the European level. Despite approaching the emerging Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group in the EP, their candidacy was rejected by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the group’s founding member. Șoșoacă’s opposition to conventional politics became visible in her maiden speech in Parliament in July, where she accused the EU of ruining Romania by providing aid to Ukraine and called for stopping the supply of weapons to Kyiv. In a move laden with symbolism, she was eventually escorted out of the Strasbourg chamber after repeatedly disturbing Valerie Hayer during the debate following a speech by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. On this occasion, she wore a dog’s muzzle on her face (Starcevic, 2024).
Conclusions
This report has explored the landscape of the far right in Romania against the backdrop of the 2024 EP elections. The emergence of AUR and SOS Romania as significant political players underscores the growing influence of populist narratives in Romanian politics. With its increased emphasis on a conservative platform and Romanian sovereignty, AUR positioned itself within the ECR group, aligning with softer Eurosceptic stances. In contrast, SOS Romania, led by the outspoken Diana Șoșoacă, projected a more confrontational stance, challenging mainstream narratives with outspoken critiques of EU policies and advocating for nationalist agendas, including calls for territorial revisionism.
Despite facing rejection from the main EP groups, SOS Romania’s representation in the European Parliament alongside AUR highlights the diversity of strategies employed by the far right in contemporary politics. Their campaigns resonated with segments of the electorate disillusioned with traditional political parties, including a significant proportion of young voters, capitalizing on issues such as national identity, sovereignty and cultural preservation. Looking forward, the impact of AUR and SOS Romania in shaping Romanian and European Union policies will depend on their ability to navigate internal cohesion challenges and establish meaningful (and stable) alliances within the EP.
(*) Sorina Soare is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Florence. She holds a PhD in political science from the Université libre de Bruxelles and previously studied political science at the University of Bucharest. She serves as a co-chair of the Council for European Studies (CES) Network on Political Parties, Party Systems and Elections and is co-editor of the Annual Review of the Journal of Common Market Studies. In addition, she is a co-editor of Studia Politica: Romanian Political Science Review. Her work focuses on comparative politics, with research interests including political parties and party systems, populism, migrants’ political participation and the role of gender and women in politics. Email: sorinacristina.soare@unifi.it
Acknowledgements: The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to Emilia Zankina, Azize Sargin, and the entire ECPS team for their kind invitation to write this piece and for all their valuable comments and suggestions. A special acknowledgement to Simon P. Watmough for his excellent comments.
Despa, O., & Vovesz, T. (2024, June 3). România & partidele ei radicale. Ziariști, avocați, profesori, teologi–candidați pentru Bruxelles. Ce se întâmplă în Ungaria și Bulgaria. Deutsche Welle. https://romania.europalibera.org/a/aur-parlament-european/32970598.html
Soare, S., & Tufiș, C. D. (2023). Saved by the diaspora? The case of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. European Political Science, 22, 101–118. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-022-00408-3
Please cite as: Theophanous, Andreas & Varda, Mary. (2024). “Rising discontent with the EU, the Rise of the Right and the 2024 European Parliament Elections in Cyprus.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024.https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0065
The objective of this chapter is to discuss the causes of rising discontent in Cyprus and assess the political outcomes. Within this framework we briefly assess how the EU has dealt with various crises in the last few years. Perceptions in Cyprus about the EU have changed over time. In the 9 June European elections, a member of the extreme right-wing party, National People’s Front (Ethniko Laiko Metopo, ELAM), was elected for the first time to the European Parliament. Understanding the circumstances in Cyprus that have gradually led to disillusionment with the national political system and the EU is essential to making sense of these developments.
Keywords: Cyprus; extreme right; economic crisis; voter disillusionment; European elections
By Andreas Theophanous* (Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia, Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs, Cyprus) &Mary Varda** (Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs, University of Nicosia, Cyprus)
Introduction
Undoubtedly, the EU currently faces multiple challenges. In addition to Euroscepticism, we are also faced with populism, which at times may lead to dangerous outcomes (Katsambekis, 2014). Yet, despite much criticism on multiple themes, the EU remains one of, if not the most desirable places in the world to live. The objective of this chapter is to discuss the causes of rising discontent in Cyprus and the political outcomes. Within this framework we briefly refer to how the EU dealt with some of the crises in the last few years.
Perceptions of the EU in Cyprus have changed over time. It is essential to understand the circumstances in this island state that have gradually led to disillusionment with the Cypriot political system and the EU. This disillusionment is one of the reasons that has led to the rise of populist trends across all Cypriot parties. Through recourse to populism, parties across the political spectrum have attempted to get closer to voters. For the purposes of this chapter, we will be focusing essentially on the case of rising right-wing rhetoric.
When Cyprus applied for membership in the EU on 4 July 1990, there were very high expectations. The principal perception was that the EU institutions and value system would eventually contribute to the termination of the occupation of the northern part of Cyprus and to a just solution to the problem. At the same time, there were high expectations regarding socioeconomic modernization and a new era. According to polls taken during the accession negotiations, Cyprus had the most favourable attitude towards the EU.
Eventually, these perceptions gradually changed, with the initial optimism fading (Katsourides, 2014). Indeed, retrospectively, Cypriots now view their initial perceptions as illusions. There were some specific issues which led to these changes. During the negotiations to resolve the Cyprus problem, which coincided with the period leading to accession, pressures were exerted on the Greek Cypriot side by the United Nations (UN), the United States and the United Kingdom, the former colonial power on the island. The EU more or less followed their lead. When Professor Shlomo Avineri of the University of Jerusalem and Ex-Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel read the UN’s Annan Plan, he noted that it amounted to ‘the favourite occupation of the EU and the UN’ (Avineri, 2004). Yet, the Greek Cypriots were demonized for rejecting this plan.
It is instructive to compare and contrast the EU stance towards Russia and Turkey. Although by definition each case is unique, there are also some common characteristics. In both cases, there have been violations of international law. When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there was a strong reaction on the part of the West. As Theophanous (2023: 205) notes: ‘The response of the EU was firm and punitive’. Russia soon became the most sanctioned country in the world, while Ukraine has received massive economic and military aid. ‘In the case of Cyprus, however’, Theophanous further reminds us, ‘Turkey has been tolerated and accommodated. This is because Russia is considered a foe, while Turkey is perceived as a strategic partner’ (Ibid.).
In the case of Cyprus, the West (including the EU) has more or less adjusted to the fait accompli created by Turkey’s occupation of 37% of the territory of Cyprus. The West (including the EU) tolerates this occupation and its entailing colonization and Islamization, the usurpation of Greek Cypriot properties in the north, as well as its systematic violations of the Cypriot exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by Turkey. In addition, the EU has not made economic aid to the Turkish Cypriots conditional, which would incentivize co-operation. Understandably, Greek Cypriots are not pleased with these policies and practices. As a result, the way the EU is perceived has changed in the eyes of most Cypriots.
When Cyprus faced a significant economic crisis in 2013, the EU’s treatment was rather punitive and irrational. There is no doubt that there was a need for a major restructuring of the Cypriot economy. However, the way it was promoted unnecessarily entailed a huge socioeconomic cost.
These developments, coupled with the ongoing economic turmoil caused by rising inflation, have made Cypriot voters susceptible to populist rhetoric. These conditions made the far-right and anti-systemic rhetoric of the National People’s Front (Ethniko Laiko Metopo, ELAM) appear as a viable way out of the crises for some voters. Others turn to ELAM as a form of protest against the current political system (Knews Kathimerini, 2023). This is demonstrated through ELAM’s electoral success at the 2024 European elections, where the party, which was founded in 2008, managed to secure its first seat in the European Parliament.
The historical context of right-wing politics in Cyprus
Right-wing politics in Cyprus has a long and complex history, deeply intertwined with the island’s political and social developments (Charalambous, 2018). The roots of right-wing ideology can be traced back to the early twentieth century, during the struggle against British colonial rule and the pursuit of enosis (union with Greece). This period saw the rise of nationalist sentiments and the establishment of right-wing political organizations such as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA), which played a significant role in the anti-colonial movement and Cyprus’ subsequent independence from Britain in 1960.
Following independence, right-wing politics continued to be influential. This trend persisted after the Turkish invasion of 1974 as well. In 1976 the Democratic Rally (DISY) was founded and gradually emerged as a major political force. It has long advocated a market-oriented economy, closer ties with the West and a pragmatic stance on the Cyprus issue. Over time, however, the political landscape began to shift, particularly in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis that followed. These economic challenges, which entailed high unemployment rates, austerity measures and corruption, fuelled public discontent and created fertile ground for the resurgence of far-right rhetoric (Katsourides, 2014).
Most Cypriots believe that the EU did not treat Cyprus rationally and with solidarity when the country found itself in a difficult economic condition in 2013. The Cypriot economic crisis had both endogenous and exogenous causes. Cyprus’ treatment by the Troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – was harsh and punitive. Several politicians and analysts indicated that Cyprus was used as a guinea pig (Žižek, 2014). Many Cypriots feel that it is doubtful whether the Troika would have treated a Catholic or a Protestant country in the same way as Cyprus and Greece were treated. In the process the Cypriot banking system was in essence destroyed. Currently, the banking system essentially belongs to foreign capital. Furthermore, the cost of services has increased while quality has declined. Cyprus Airways closed down, with foreign carriers taking over its routes. Inequality grew and the Cypriot economic structure changed. Despite the Troika, Cyprus recovered, albeit at a high socioeconomic cost (Theophanous, 2018). Cypriots also feel that the EU is currently not exhibiting adequate solidarity in relation to the immigration crisis. Cyprus is the top EU country in terms of per capita asylum applications.
Inevitably, these issues have led to Euroscepticism and discontent concerning the EU. At the same time, critics feel that the mainstream political parties have not successfully addressed the significant challenges Cyprus faces. Discontent with the Cypriot political system has been growing, given that there have been serious incidents of corruption on several occasions, and the country has failed to cope successfully with multiple challenges.
Considering all these factors, it is hardly surprising that voter turnout has declined as more and more Cypriots disengage from politics. At the same time, according to polls and actual election results, ELAM’s public support has been growing. It could be said that many of those who support it are expressing a protest on the one hand and a warning on the other. These voters are part of a broader trend of far-right populism gaining traction across Europe, driven by economic insecurities, cultural anxieties and disillusionment with mainstream politics. Despite its radical positions, ELAM has managed to integrate into the political mainstream to some extent, collaborating with other parties on specific issues while maintaining its distinct far-right identity. For example, Annita Demetriou (DISY), the president of Cyprus’ parliament, was elected thanks to the votes of the MPs of ELAM and another small centrist party, Democratic Alignment (DiPa), who voted with her party. The historical presence of right-wing politics in Cyprus and the contemporary rise of ELAM illustrate the dynamic and evolving nature of political ideologies on the island, shaped by historical legacies and current sociopolitical challenges.
The political context of the 2024 European Parliament elections
When a country faces occupation, existential issues, difficult socioeconomic conditions, corruption, high immigration flows and identity issues and the political system cannot respond adequately, extreme tendencies at some point become inevitable. Even before the European parliamentary election results were announced, there was a widespread belief that the political system required much improvement. Thus, the rise of right-wing rhetoric, especially in the case of Cyprus, did not come as a surprise, and its representation in the European Parliament was expected.
Furthermore, even though two elections were held concurrently on 9 June 2024 – for the European Parliament and local government – the voter turnout was dismally low at 50.5% (Philenews, 2024). The low turnout rates indicate the disillusionment of the Cypriot electorate towards both national and European politics. It is worth noting that the Cypriot electorate has never demonstrated particularly high levels of engagement with European politics, which has fallen even lower since the Eurozone crisis in 2013 (see Figure 1). As mentioned earlier, its significant social impact on Cyprus seemed to alter citizens’ views towards the EU during this period (Katsourides, 2013).
In recent years, voters have repeatedly warned the political system in various ways, but the response has not been satisfactory. As mentioned earlier, the EU’s stance on several issues has been inadequate, requiring member states to pick up the slack in many instances, such as on the issue of asylum seekers. Even before the 2024 elections, the political system and the three major political parties – DISY, the Democratic Party (DIKO) and the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) – faced crisis and our brief overview shows there were already plenty of warning signs (Theophanous, 2024a; Theophanous, 2024b; Theophanous, 2024c). Citizens also gave politicians many warnings and opportunities to change course. Because they did not see any real change, their messages were much stronger at the 9 June elections. It would not be an exaggeration to describe the results (the election of an extreme right-wing candidate and an independent candidate with no prior political experience) as a political earthquake.
It should be noted that, firstly, during the European election campaign, there was not much discussion on the challenges facing the EU or the candidates’ positions. Most notably, Fidias Panayiotou, the independent candidate with no background in politics or social issues, made it clear in his pre-election campaign that he had yet to formulate any political opinions on matters such as the Cyprus question or the role of the EU. Nor was there any discussion of the role of Cyprus in the European project (Theophanous, 2024e). Secondly, a vital objective of the local government reform preceding the June elections was to reduce the cost of running it. However, fears have already been expressed that there will probably be an increase in costs. This has further deepened the grievances of the Cypriot electorate with the current political system and the parties responsible for this reform. The disillusionment of the electorate and their preference for ‘apolitical politics’ was also evident in the latest presidential elections in Cyprus, where the incumbent president, Nikos Christodoulides, won even though he focused more on his public image than on policies to address fundamental issues. This strategy proved highly successful as it enabled him to stand apart from the established political parties of the island, which Cypriot citizens have long accused of corruption (Triga et al., 2023).
The results of the 2024 European elections
It is also important to assess the election results, even if only briefly, concerning the performance of the political parties. A brief introduction of the main political parties of Cyprus – DISY, DIKO and AKEL – is thus necessary. DISY is a Christian Democratic party with a liberal–conservative ideology, while DIKO is a nationalist–centrist political party, and AKEL is Cyprus’ communist party.
In June, DISY recorded its lowest percentage vote share ever (24.8%). Despite the decline in support, it was the party that paid the smallest price. Furthermore, while it may not have had satisfactory results in the local government elections, retaining the two seats in the European Parliament was a tremendous boon.
After losing three presidential elections and considering the difficult socioeconomic conditions, one would have expected AKEL to recover and present itself as a leading force. This did not happen. Despite the relatively positive performance in the local government elections, the result for the European elections (21.5%) and the loss of one seat constitute a major defeat for the party. Obviously, the causes of this result run deeper than the election campaign. AKEL’s leadership should, among other things, ask itself why citizens expressed their disdain for the current state of political affairs by supporting a candidate without a political background and concrete policy proposals, among other candidates, rather than the largest opposition party.
Inevitably, its showing (9.7% of the vote) was also a defeat for DIKO, even though it retained its seat in the European Parliament. The fact that the party’s share fell below 10% while ELAM surpassed it contains both substantive and symbolic messages. We should recall that one of DIKO’s campaign slogans was ‘vote DIKO for effective governance’. Obviously, the electorate did not respond. Nor is it a coincidence that the other two parties that supported President Nicos Christodoulides also saw their electoral strength decline.
During the election campaign, one of the top priorities of almost all parties was the need to contain ELAM. Nevertheless, ELAM continued to grow, securing a double-digit share of the vote (11.2%), surpassing DIKO and securing one EP seat. The political system should also ask itself what would have happened to ELAM’s percentage if not for the candidacy of the independent, Fidias Panayiotou, who gained 19.4% of the votes.
One of the most important advantages of ELAM is its ability to resonate strongly with younger voters, something the traditional parties have been struggling to do. Indeed, ELAM’s voter base is disproportionately made up of young male voters (Knews Kathimerini, 2023). ELAM’s strength, much like Fidias Panayiotou’s, came from its ability to mobilize younger voters who failed to show up in large numbers in previous elections. However, unlike ELAM, Panagiotou did not present any specific policy positions. From this observation, we can see how Cyprus’ political system has cultivated an apolitical mentality, fostering a climate for the advent and strengthening of populism (Theophanous, 2024d). Panayiotou took advantage of this state of affairs – the disdain and disappointment of thousands of citizens, especially young people – to secure a seat in the European Parliament.
Obviously, there is an urgent need to redefine the political system and public life in Cyprus. The parties and the political system should take stock of recent developments and look for new ideas, novel approaches and fresh faces. Cyprus and its people are facing serious challenges. It is crucial to get politics back on track.
The National People’s Front’s appeal and political trajectory
As touched on above, ELAM was founded in 2008 as the Cypriot sister party of the Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi party in Greece. The group that founded the party sought to register it under the same name (Golden Dawn), but the authorities denied this request (Charalambous and Christoforou, 2018; Katsourides, 2013). ELAM, however, passed through a transitional period, during which it shaped a new public face in the political landscape, escaping from the shadow of Golden Dawn. What prompted and necessitated this change was the fact that Golden Dawn and its leaders were convicted and imprisoned for operating a criminal organization that was tied to murder and criminal violence. In addition, in an attempt to become accepted as part of the Cypriot political system and cast off its image as an extremist organization, ELAM proceeded to distance itself from other extreme European right-wing parties and organizations – such as the National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany, Forza Nuova in Italy, and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) in Russia – with which they had previously advertised their close ties. ELAM, for example, ensured that links to the websites of the above European parties were deleted from its website. In addition, it removed all documents and text it shared with the Golden Dawn website.
ELAM’s political positions have relied on principles and policies adopted by both parties on the left and right. Their practices were determined by both ideological and tactical motives. In its early steps, it appeared increasingly difficult for ELAM to make a breakthrough in the Cypriot political scene as its program transcended mainstream party politics. In addition to the Cyprus problem, the advent of the economic crisis of 2011 and the austerity measures imposed by the Troika in 2013, along with the severe budget cuts, the ‘haircut’ uninsured depositors had to take on balances above €100,000, as well as political corruption, gave ELAM the opportunity to establish itself as a legitimate political force. It could do so because, unlike the traditional parties deemed responsible for such crises, ELAM was a novel political force untarnished by corruption at the time. It could thus enter the political scene as the new political force that would hold traditional parties accountable.
All of ELAM’s policies have the underlying principle of protecting the Greek Cypriots. ELAM narrowly identifies the issues to be addressed by and for the Greek Cypriots (mostly the Turkish occupation of the northern part of Cyprus, the neoliberal policies of the EU and illegal immigration). Identifying explicit threats against the interests of the Greek Cypriots enables ELAM to propose clear solutions (regardless of whether they are pragmatic or not). This simplicity of ELAM’s discourse seems to appeal to many voters. The success of this discourse is reflected in the gradual and steady rise in ELAM’s votes from 663 votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections to 4.056 in the Cyprus parliamentary elections of 2011, 13.040 in 2016 and 24.255 in May 2021, becoming the fourth largest party on the island. During the 2024 European Parliament elections, ELAM secured its first seat in the European Parliament with 41.215 votes (Cyprus Mail, 2024). Currently, ELAM is the third-largest party on the island.
ELAM promotes a narrative emphasizing support for families, youth, vulnerable populations, low-income workers, and pensioners, proposing measures to aid these groups (Chatzistylianou, 2019). Within this framework, it often contrasts this support with the assistance given to Turkish Cypriots, migrants and asylum seekers, advocating for policies favouring native Greeks.
Although ELAM criticizes other political parties as corrupt and accountable for the country’s problems, its anti-establishment stance becomes ambiguous following its entry into the House of Representatives in 2016. It has co-operated with the ruling Democratic Rally to pass budgets and, as mentioned, elect the president of the parliament in 2021. In a political landscape where mainstream parties, including DISY, adopt anti-immigration stances, ELAM distinguishes itself as the authentic representative of these views.
ELAM supports left-wing economic policies aimed at wealth redistribution and increased state intervention in market regulation. It advocates for social protection measures, reduced business taxes in rural areas, incentives for technology and innovation, and various forms of business support.
The economic crisis which started in 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic provided ELAM with opportunities to develop its strategy, focusing on aiding those in need while distinguishing between natives and non-natives. The party’s approach involves reallocating state aid from migrants and asylum seekers to native Greeks, thereby positioning itself as a champion of vulnerable groups (Charalambous & Christoforou, 2018). This strategy helped ELAM differentiate itself from other populist parties, as it capitalized on the public’s discοntent with systemic parties blamed for the crises, allowing ELAM to emerge as a perceived saviοur.
Concluding remarks
The rise of right-wing rhetoric in Cyprus, exemplified by the success of ELAM, reflects broader regional and global trends of populist movements. The fact that the EU has been unable to respond effectively to pressing issues plaguing the Union (immigration and economic crises as well as the war in Ukraine) allowed for the rampant spread of Euroscepticism. Cypriot citizens have an additional reason for their Eurosceptic attitude as their expectations of the EU regarding the Cyprus problem have not been met. Inevitably, many citizens adopted the Eurosceptic stance of ELAM. In addition, the failure of the Cypriot political system and the mainstream parties to effectively address issues has been a significant factor in the rise of ELAM.
This article has traced the historical roots and contemporary dynamics of right-wing politics in Cyprus, highlighting that the support for such ideologies is deeply embedded in the country’s political history. Indeed, it can even be argued that if the extreme right were not associated with the disaster of 1974, perhaps its support would have been even higher. The recent electoral success of ELAM underscores the urgent need for the political system to address the underlying causes of this trend and redefine its approach to public life and governance. Likewise, it is essential to assess how this climate of discontent can be ameliorated both in the EU as a whole and in the member states.
(*) Andreas Theophanous, Professor, Head of the Department of Politics and Governance, School of Law, University of Nicosia, President, Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs, theophanous.a@unic.ac.cy.
(**) Mary Varda, Research Fellow of the Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs, varda.m@unic.ac.cy
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Biscaia, Afonso & Salgado, Susana. (2024). “The 2024 European Elections and Right-wing Populism in Portugal.” In: 2024 EP Elections under the Shadow of Rising Populism. (eds). Gilles Ivaldi and Emilia Zankina. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS. October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0080
Unlike previous European elections, the 2024 European election brought the discussion of European issues to the media and political agendas in Portugal, a country where most voters hold a positive image of the EU. Despite managing to elect its first two MEPs, the European election was not fertile terrain for Chega, as it stopped Chega’s continuous electoral growth since 2019 and its objectives were not fully achieved. Poor candidate selection, overambitious goals, a disconnect between Chega’s soft Euroscepticism and its supporters’ mostly enthusiastic view of the EU, ambiguity about which European party group it would join, and intermittent support from its popular leader, André Ventura, were relevant factors influencing Chega’s campaign and ensuing results. A relatively low turnout and overrepresentation of constituencies that are unlikely to vote for the populist radical right compounded the scenario.
Keywords: Portugal; Chega; populism; European elections; António Tânger Corrêa; André Ventura.
The 2024 European election represented the first setback for right-wing populist politics in Portugal after five years of growth. Just three months previously, a snap general election gave the largest-ever representation for right-wing populist Chega (Enough). In this context, Chega publicly set its sights on winning the European elections outright, but poor candidate selection, a lacklustre campaign, a lack of clarity about Chega’s preferences regarding European party groups, and a manifesto that did not conform to its own supporters’ preferences contributed to hampering its goals. Thus, on 9 June, the dominant right-wing populist party in Portugal received around 783,000 fewer votes than it had in March while still electing its first two MEPs.
Growth and reorganization of right-wing populist politics in Portugal (2019–2024)
In the 2019 European elections, the National Renovation Party (Partido Nacional Renovador, PNR) and the Basta coalition (‘Basta’ is a synonym of Chega) were the right-wing populist options. PNR is older and more radical, while Basta was a coalition of small conservative parties and movements led by André Ventura, the leader of Chega, then a splinter group from the centre-right Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata, PSD). Both candidacies were unsuccessful, garnering a combined tally of around 65,000 votes.
Nevertheless, 2019 would turn out to be a pivotal year for Portuguese right-wing populism. In the general election held in October, Chega became the first right-wing populist party to achieve a parliamentary breakthrough, attaining 1.29% of the vote. Chega enhanced its position in two subsequent (snap) elections, in 2022 and 2024, increasing its vote share to 7.18% and 18.07%, respectively, becoming the dominant radical right-wing populist party and third largest overall.
Chega’s agenda has focused on typical radical right-wing populist issues, such as corruption, immigration and security (Biscaia & Salgado, 2022; Mendes, 2022), as well as on the rhetorical construction of an in-group of ‘righteous Portuguese’ in opposition to out-groups and the political elite (Biscaia & Salgado, 2022). Foreign policy has not been Chega’s priority. Its stances on the matter are often instrumental. Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chega adopted a pro-Ukraine position, aligned with most mainstream parties (Biscaia & Salgado, 2023). On the Israel-Palestine conflict, it was clearly pro-Israel, claiming Netanyahu’s government was entitled to ‘neutralize the threat’, and was the only parliamentary party that declined to join calls for a ceasefire (Agência Lusa, 2024a).
The sovereign debt crisis of the 2010s and subsequent austerity policies drove some voters out of the electoral market and cleared the way for smaller parties to make gains by bringing new issues to the fore (Lisi et al., 2020). Chega was the most successful party in capitalizing on these opportunities and managed to mobilize voters who had abstained in previous elections and maintain their vote, but also attracted voters who had previously voted for PSD and the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista, PS) in previous elections (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024b). Anti-Roma sentiment and welfare chauvinism were key issues in Chega’s growth even before its official founding, as Ventura’s first run for local office, still with PSD, leant heavily on Romaphobia (Bugalho, 2017). Similarly, Afonso (2021) has found that electoral support for the radical right in the 2021 presidential election in Portugal was disproportionately higher in those localities with greater concentrations of Roma populations and welfare beneficiaries. However, as concerns about immigration have intensified in Portugal, with support for restrictive migration policies reaching a slight majority (55%) in 2023–2024 (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024c), migrants – especially Muslims – have become a more prominent target in Chega’s rhetoric (e.g., Matos, 2024).
Other parties tried to emulate Chega’s quick growth. The PNR rebranded as Ergue-te (Rise Up) shortly after Chega’s success in 2019, but the move proved ineffectual, as it received a paltry 0.09% of the vote in the 2024 general election. The Democratic Republican Party (Partido Democrático Republicano, PDR), a centrist populist party (Salgado & Zúquete, 2017), also rebranded, taking on the name Democratic National Alternative (Alternativa Democrática Nacional, ADN) and establishing connections with ultra-conservative Brazilian evangelical groups (Vasco, 2024). The ADN baffled pundits in the 2024 general election by multiplying its previous election tally tenfold and qualifying for state funding despite narrowly failing to elect a single MP; the result was interpreted as a product either of influential political evangelicalism (Henriques, 2024) or confusion between its name and that of the Democratic Alternative (AD), a centre-right coalition composed of the PSD, the CDS–People’s Party and the People’s Monarchist Party (PPM) (Camilo, 2024).
European election: candidates, manifestos and the campaign
Chega’s lead candidate in the European election was António Tânger Corrêa, a party vice president and former diplomat. A month before the election, 71% of poll respondents said they did not know who he was (CESOP Surveys, 2024a), and a few days before the election, 22% of survey respondents who had voted for Chega in March said they were still undecided about the European election (CESOP Surveys, 2024b). The candidate was perceived as eccentric, which was reinforced by his endorsement of conspiracy theories such as ‘the great replacement’ and use of antisemitic tropes, like accusing the Mossad of forewarning American Jews of terrorist attacks on 9/11 (e.g., Chagas, 2024; Malhado, 2024). Ventura, much more popular among Chega supporters, seemed not to prioritize the European election, spending significant time campaigning for regional elections in Madeira; he only joined Tânger Corrêa in the last stretch of the campaign, trying to ensure improved media coverage.
Tânger Corrêa was also ambiguous about Chega’s membership in European political groups, refusing to address the issue and, at one point, saying voters did not need to know how the party would behave in the European Parliament (Oliveira Martins et al., 2024). Nevertheless, Chega had been a member of the Identity and Democracy group (ID) since 2020. Its views on European issues were generally aligned with those expressed on ID’s program, such as its opposition to ‘any supranational construction’ and demand for stricter immigration control (Identity and Democracy Party, n.d.) as well as in drawing a ‘sharp distinction between Europe and the European Union’ and emphasis on intergovernmental cooperation mechanisms, as advocated for in ID’s ‘Declaration of Antwerp’ (Identity and Democracy Party, 2022). However, only 5% of Portuguese Eurobarometer respondents have a negative image of the EU (Public Opinion Monitoring Unit, 2024), and Chega supporters are only slightly less enthusiastic. On average, they express positive views of EU and Eurozone membership, as well as further European integration. They differ from the mainstream mainly in expressing more disillusionment about the bloc’s democratic nature: 46% of surveyed Chega supporters were ‘reasonably’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with it, compared to 56% of PS supporters and 67% of those who identify with PSD (ICS–ISCTE Surveys, 2024a).
Aware of the EU’s popularity in Portugal and among its supporters, Chega articulated some soft Euroscepticism in its European election manifesto: ‘A Europa Precisa de uma Limpeza’ (Europe Needs a Clean Up). Thus, the document conceded that EU membership had ‘served the [Portuguese] national interest’ (Chega, 2024: 3) but defined Chega as ‘a deeply sovereigntist, pro-European, and Atlanticist’ party (Chega, 2024: 3) and claims that European institutions have been ‘overtaken by a narrow bureaucratic oligarchy that disregards member states’ identities and history and meddles in practically every dimension of life (Chega, 2024: 3–4). The manifesto envisioned intergovernmental cooperation guided by an ‘uncompromising’ defence of each member state’s national interest as the main policy mechanism and dismissed further integration (Chega, 2024: 6–7). Migration was presented as the foremost policy priority, arguing that it threatened ‘member states’ identity and security’ by pointing at ‘the situation in Germany, Italy, Greece, France, and Sweden’ (Chega, 2024: 7–8). Other stated priorities were expanding member states’ military capabilities to end ‘military reliance on the United States’ (Chega, 2024: 10) while urging that Portugal meet the minimum NATO commitment of 2% of GDP for annual defence spending (Chega, 2024: 10), and fighting corruption.
However, reinforcing the second-order nature of European elections in Portugal, Chega’s manifesto proposals were mostly focused on domestic policy, like abandoning the UN’s Global Compact for Migration, revoking the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) mobility agreement, and establishing stricter rules for Portuguese naturalization. European-level proposals were scarce but included reinforcing the Frontex mechanism (Chega, 2024: 8), ending assistance for ‘NGOs that support illegal immigration’ and, vaguely, the ‘generalized adoption of the [immigration] models the UK has been implementing’ (Chega, 2024: 8). Despite Ventura having called for further sanctions on Russia in the past (Biscaia & Salgado, 2023), no specific course of action was proposed regarding ongoing wars.
Regarding the other populist parties’ lead candidates in the European election, ADN’s lead candidate was Joana Amaral Dias, a well-known former MP of Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda, BE), and Ergue-te selected Rui Fonseca Castro, a controversial former judge. ADN’s European election manifesto articulated what could be described as a denialist ideology. It urged peace between Russia and Ukraine, lamenting the loss of access to ‘cheap Russian energy’ (ADN, 2024: 4) and urging an end to sanctions (ADN, 2024: 25), opposed green transition initiatives as ‘turning science into a dogma’ and ‘making life impossible for European businesses’ (ADN, 2024: 7). ADN castigated ‘the failure of integration’ and demanded restrictive migration policies (ADN, 2024: 39). Ergue-te’s hard Eurosceptic manifesto ‘Libertar a Europa da União Europeia’ (Freeing Europe from the European Union) predicted and advocated for the ‘inevitable implosion’ of the EU (Ergue-te, 2024: 4), but recognized that Portugal’s exit from the bloc was ‘for now, impossible’ (Ergue-te, 2024: 2). It denounced migration, including of ‘so-called refugees’ (Ergue-te, 2024: 5) and proposed the reversal of same-sex marriage laws (Ergue-te, 2024: 7). Regarding national defence, Ergue-te stance is akin to Chega’s, advocating for European ‘military emancipation’ from the United States, through the creation of a more robust defence industry (Ergue-te, 2024: 7).
Debates provided opportunities to set the agenda. In past European election campaigns, the media had been criticized for focusing excessively on domestic issues, but that was not the case in 2024, as debates focused on issues like immigration, defence, EU enlargement, and the potential nomination of the former prime minister, António Costa, as president of the European Council (Ribeiro, 2024; Ribeiro Soares & Martins, 2024). Apart from Costa’s – at the time putative – nomination, the issues roughly corresponded with the electorate’s assessment of the most important issues facing the EU, of which the war in Ukraine, the internal situation, immigration, and the economy came out on top (Public Opinion Monitoring Unit, 2024). Tânger Corrêa participated in the mainstream televised debates but did not prove appealing to TV audiences, as his appearances were estimated to be the least watched (Borges Ferreira, 2024), and his assertions frequently fact-checked (e.g., Leal, 2024) and derided as too weird. ADN and Ergue-te participated in a single debate between smaller parties without parliamentary representation. However, these parties failed to seize the opportunity to reverse their image as fringe candidates.
The election
In Portugal, as in other member states, European elections are considered second-order elections, and the 2024 European elections came at the uncertain beginning of a new political cycle in Portugal. PS, led by António Costa, had governed since 2015 and remained fairly popular throughout most of its long tenure, but several scandals deteriorated its image, and the AD coalition, led by PSD, narrowly won the 2024 snap general election. Its slim parliamentary plurality – 80 MPs to PS’s 78 and Chega’s 50 – means the new government must negotiate in parliament, including over the state budget. Pointing to similarities between PS and PSD, Ventura designated himself as ‘the real leader of the opposition’ and announced that Chega would not vote AD legislation through (Carrapatoso & Figueiredo, 2024). Tânger Corrêa’s candidacy was launched at this time, which partly explains Ventura’s statement of Chega’s objectives: to win the election, avoid a centrist majority in the European Parliament and Ursula von der Leyen’s re-election, and spearhead a ‘grand European coalition, from Hungary to Lisbon’ (Figueiredo, 2024).
The aftermath of the general election was still an important topic during the European Parliamentary election campaign and despite a slight increase in participation from the previous two elections (2014: 33.84%; 2019: 30.73%), only 36.47% of eligible voters deposited ballots on 9 June, compared to 59.84% in the March general election. Ultimately, PS, whose lead candidate, Marta Temido, owed her popularity to having been health minister during the COVID-19 pandemic, reversed the earlier results, narrowly beating AD, whose list was led by TV pundit Sebastião Bugalho. Both achieved vote shares of around 30% and fewer than 40.000 votes separated them. Similarly, left-wing parties’ results were akin to those in March, and the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português, PCP), the BE, and Livre (Free) all tallied at around 4%. However, only the former two managed to elect an MEP.
The most significant differences in results happened on the right: despite lower participation, Liberal Initiative (Iniciativa Liberal, IL) gained nearly 40,000 votes more than in the general election, up to 9.08%, and elected two MEPs. Conversely, Chega lost nearly 783.000 votes from its general election tally despite holding on to third place and also electing two MEPs, with 9.79% of the total vote. Chega’s losses were greater than any other party’s, and, unlike in the general election, it failed to capture first or second place in any electoral district in Portugal. However, it did repeat wins in constituencies abroad, like Switzerland or Brazil.
Chega’s loss can also be partially explained by a more challenging context in this election, namely concerning voter demographics, since older and more educated voters, who are more likely to vote in low-turnout elections and less likely to vote for the right-wing populist party, were estimated to have been overrepresented (Magalhães, 2024). On the night of 9 June, Tânger Corrêa described the day as ‘not good’, and Ventura admitted Chega ‘did not achieve its goals’ but found comfort in obtaining more votes than in 2019 and electing MEPs (Camilo, 2024b). The ADN and Ergue-te failed to elect any MEPs, attaining 1.37% and 0.16% of the total vote, respectively. Despite the ADN’s similar vote share compared to March, it lost nearly half of its votes, reigniting the debate over its previous result. Additionally, Ergue-te’s marginal result seems to confirm its fringe status once again, but also that of hard Euroscepticism.
Conclusion
The 2024 European election capped a cycle of uninterrupted growth for Chega that started at its launch in the 2019 European elections. During that period, Chega managed to go from parliamentary breakthrough to 50 MPs, sparking the reorganization of its area of the political field, namely the rebranding of extant parties that Chega overtook and the appearance of new players interested in replicating its success in mobilizing non-voters. Chega’s expectations were high in the 2024 European elections, and Ventura publicly set the win as Chega’s goal.
Nevertheless, the nomination of the eccentric António Tânger Corrêa and enhanced media scrutiny weakened the campaign. For the first time since its foundation, Chega received fewer votes than in the previous election despite electing its two first MEPs, Tânger Corrêa and Tiago Moreira de Sá. It is too early to predict whether this result will have any lingering effects on the party at the national level, as Ventura’s popularity among Chega supporters and media visibility remain undiminished.
Similarly, it is not straightforward to predict what the Chega MEPs’ main legislative priorities will be. The party joined the new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group along with other right-wing populist mainstays like France’s National Rally (RN) and the Freedom Party of Austria (both formerly in ID), as well as Spain’s Vox, part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group until July 2024, and Fidesz, which left the European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021. The new group’s manifesto advocates for similar principles as the ID’s, asserting that the EU has ‘turned against Europeans and now pursues interests contrary to the will of the Nations, Regions, and small communities that constitute our European home’ (Patriots for Europe, n.d.), while pledging to ‘prioritize sovereignty over federalism’ (Patriots for Europe, n.d.). Chega MEPs will likely join initiatives designed to restrict immigration and bolster European military–industrial capacity, as both were presented as priorities in Chega’s manifesto.
However, it is less clear how Tânger Corrêa’s views on the invasion of Ukraine will influence his voting record. On 17 July, he abstained on a resolution recommitting the EU to ongoing support for Ukraine (Antunes & Figueiredo, 2024). However, attempts to block further financial and military aid to Ukraine would put him at odds with Chega’s official position. Regardless, Chega’s MEPs will almost certainly not prove decisive in defining PfE’s priorities. Despite Tânger Corrêa’s nomination as one of its vice presidents, the group looks set to be steered by more influential players in the European right and the radical right-wing populist milieu.
(*) Afonso Biscaia is a PhD candidate in Comparative Politics at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais–Universidade de Lisboa. His main research interests include radical right-wing populism and digital political communication.
(**) Susana Salgado (PhD, 2007) is a political communication scholar. She coordinates research projects, teaches, and publishes on democracy, populism, disinformation, hate and online extremism, and political polarization. Salgado is currently Principal Research Fellow at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais–Universidade de Lisboa and the principal investigator of externally funded research projects, including “(The Matrix of) Populist and Denialist Attitudes towards Science” (PTDC/CPO- CPO/4361/2021) and “Depictions and Politicization of the Truth in Democratic Politics (2020.04070.CEECIND/CP1615/CT0007).
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This chapter focuses on Croatia and deals with the national conservative Domovinski Pokret/Homeland Movement (DP) party. In the latest European elections, the DP garnered a percentage of 8.82% (65,383 votes and one seat), taking third spot after the ruling (centre-right) Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the ‘Rivers of Justice’ coalition spearheaded by the (centre-left) Social Democrat Party (SDP). I begin the present chapter by sketching a typology of the constituent segments along the broad spectrum of the European right wing and situate the DP within it. I then offer a summary of the DP’s founding principles vis-à-vis further European integration and clarify the extent to which these principles were reflected in the party’s stances and active engagement in the latest European elections. I then identify the main catalysts behind the DP leadership’s success in mobilizing target groups and galvanizing electoral support for the party.
Keywords: Radical Right, National Conservatives, European Elections, Euroscepticism, Croatia, Ukraine
By Vassilis Petsinis* (Institute of Global Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest)
Introduction
The results of the European elections (6–9 June 2024) have generated diverse political repercussions on the national, European and global levels. On the one hand, the parties of the centre-right, grouped under the European People’s Party (EPP), and the parties of the centre-left, rallying behind the banner of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, succeeded in maintaining the top and the second spot, respectively, at the European level. On the other hand, the landscape became hazier concerning the political forces clustered along the broader right-wing spectrum beyond the EPP – namely, the parties of the national conservative as well as the populist and radical right in the European Parliament (EP).
One catalyst that has complicated the precise assessment of those parties’ performance is that the political forces beyond the conservative centre-right were scattered among different coalitions such as the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) groups – also including powerful non-attached (NA) political actors including Hungary’s Fidesz party. Nevertheless, it appears that these parties succeeded in one of three ways in the latest European elections. First, some consolidated their already preeminent positions in the domestic politics of their respective states, such as the National Rally (RN) in France, or enhanced their positions significantly, as in the case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands, and the Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland. A second set expanded and augmented, to varying degrees, their public appeal, including Vox in Spain, Chega in Portugal, and the Hellenic Solution (EL) in Greece. A third, smaller group saw their support erode due to the emergence of new contenders, most notably the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary, which has ceded popularity to the centre-right Respect and Freedom party (Tisza).
In Central and Southeast Europe, the voter turnout in the latest European elections ranged from relatively high (e.g., Hungary, 59.46%) to relatively low (e.g., Poland, 40.65%; Slovakia, 34.38%) and meagre (e.g., Lithuania, 28.35%) (European Parliament, n.d.). This article casts its lens on Croatia, one of the new member states where the turnout rate was the lowest in the EU (21.35%) (Ibid).
Despite the lack of voter interest, the EU is a significant benefactor for Croatia, which has been heavily dependent on financial support from Brussels since it joined the Union in 2013. In particular, the EU’s Structural and Cohesion Funds have been of crucial significance in upgrading the local infrastructure in the less-developed regions of the country (e.g., certain parts of Eastern Slavonia and Dalmatia). Moreover, especially following the country’s accession to the Schengen Area (1 January 2023), employment opportunities within the EU have provided both ‘white collar’ and ‘blue collar’ professional categories with a vital ‘lifeline’. As an aggregate of these sociopolitical realities, the primary concerns and expectations of the Croatian electorate during the latest European elections predominantly revolved around the economy, and public Euroscepticism was not noticeably high. At the same time, global and regional crises generated shockwaves within the Croatian public and among the country’s political elites. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a particular case in point, with several political actors across the political divide seeking to draw tentative analogies between this weighty geopolitical moment and Croatia’s Domovinski Rat (‘Homeland War’) from 1991 to 1995.
As a consequence of the Domovinski Rat, Croatia has several parties that oscillate between the categories of the radical and the extreme right. While formed between the early 1990s and the early 2000s, these parties – including the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), the Croatian Pure Party of Rights (HČSP) and the Autochthonous Party of Rights (A–HSP) – tend to claim roots in the same nineteenth-century nationalist Hrvatska Stranka Prava or Croatian Party of Rights.
Nevertheless, since not one of these older parties has been represented either in the Croatian Sabor (national assembly) or the EP for longer than a decade, this article focuses on the national conservative party, the Domovinski Pokret (Homeland Movement, DP), which in the short period since its formation has become the most vocal opposition party of the right. In the 2024 European elections, the DP garnered 8.82% of the vote, taking one seat and securing the third spot after the ruling, centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the ‘Rivers of Justice’ coalition spearheaded by the centre-left Social Democrat Party (SDP) (Table 1). Launched on 29 February 2020, the DP has set its principal objective to antagonize the ruling HDZ from the right. This aim acquires a greater significance, considering that roughly one month earlier, under the leadership of Ivan Penava, the DP secured third place in the Croatian parliamentary elections (17 April 2024) with a percentage of 9.56%, taking 14 seats (Table 2). This result, in turn, upgraded the party’s leverage in the negotiations for the formation of a new government after the elections and rendered the DP a ‘kingmaker’ until its official inclusion in the governing coalition with the HDZ in May 2024 (Tesija, 2024; Hajdari, 2024).
I begin the present chapter by sketching a typology of the constituent segments along the broad spectrum of the European right wing and situate the DP within it. I then offer a summary of the DP’s founding principles vis-à-vis further European integration and clarify the extent to which these principles were reflected in the party’s stances and active engagement in the latest European elections. I then identify the main catalysts behind the DP leadership’s success in mobilizing target groups and galvanizing electoral support for the party.
Situating the Homeland Movement within the European populist and radical right
This schematic categorization pays primary attention to political origins, evolutionary trajectories, and patterns of (active) political engagement (Petsinis, 2019: 166–167). Parties of the populist and radical right tend to scrutinize constitutional order while striving to promote their political cause(s) principally via parliamentary and democratic institutions and procedures. Populist and radical right-wing parties may often be by-products of top-level formation processes (so-called ‘cadre’ parties) that have come into being after (a) the reformation or merger of already existing parties, as with the Sweden Democrats (SD), the Finns Party in Finland, and the Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) in Estonia; or (b) the secession of ‘splinter groups’ from larger parties such as the cases of the Independent Greeks (ANEL) and, more recently, EL in Greece.
Attention must also be paid to one more subcategory of right-wing parties beyond the centre right – the national conservatives. The political platforms of such parties maintain ethnonationalist and nativist components, as well as occasional pledges to protect ‘naturally ascribed’ gender norms and religious values, but their populist and anti-establishment tones appear somewhat less intense. A few representative examples from Central and Eastern Europe are (to a certain extent) Fidesz in Hungary, PiS in Poland and the National Alliance in Latvia.
By contrast, parties of the extreme right may actively challenge (or even attempt to temporarily substitute) the operation of state institutions (e.g., by organizing party militias or youth wings into self-styled ‘street patrols’). Such parties have usually come into being due to processes spearheaded by a grassroots nucleus often aided by semi-paramilitary groupings, therefore regularly opting for a more militant engagement. Parties of this subgroup with a non-negligible public appeal have become active across Central and Southeast Europe – notable cases during the last 10–15 years include the ‘old’ Jobbik in Hungary, ‘Our Slovakia’ (ĽSNS), Bulgaria’s ‘Ataka’, and the Golden Dawn in Greece (Ellinas, 2015; Sygkelos, 2015; Drábik, 2022).
‘Uncompromising opposition’ from the right: Where does the Homeland Movement stand on the issues?
As early as 2020, the DP leadership has set as top priorities: (a) safeguarding of national and Christian values; (b) stricter control of immigration and tougher ‘law and order’ measures, and; (c) revision of certain clauses in legislation protecting minority rights (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a). Regarding the ethnonationalist component of its political agenda, the party objects to the adoption of the ‘fixed’ quota arrangement toward the representation of ethnic minorities in the Sabor (i.e., the so-called ‘electoral district 12’), the ethnic Serb minority in particular (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 32). In addition, DP contends that ‘this arrangement has mostly enabled certain individuals and groups to serve their private interests’ (Ibid.: 31) and calls for this model to be abolished (Ibid).
Regarding gender-related issues, DP pledges to ‘respect and safeguard traditional family values’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a: 2), whereas the full party manifesto defines ‘marriage as the union between a man and a woman, as stipulated by the Constitution … [T]his guideline must be respected by the Croatian institutions’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 20). As far as the DP’s nativist principles on immigration are concerned, the party holds that ‘the protection of borders and citizens from potential threats must be assigned primarily to the authorities of sovereign states within the European Union’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 29).
In their rhetoric, the leader Ivan Penava and other high-ranking members have regularly accused political opponents of ‘incompetence and irresponsibility’, including in attacks on the HDZ for its ongoing cooperation with the ethnic Serb Independent Democratic Party (SDSS) as well as the ‘relentless promotion of pro-LGBT agendas and woke culture’ by the SDP and above all the Green-left coalition of Možemo (‘We Can!’). Nevertheless, the speed with which the current governing coalition between the HDZ and the DP was concluded and the relative flexibility with which any noteworthy obstacles were bypassed hint at a party ostensibly keener on engaging from within the halls of power instead of uncompromisingly opposing the mainstream establishment. Therefore, despite the occasional display of paraphernalia associated with the wartime fascist Ustaše (‘Insurgents’)regime (1941–1945) in public events co-ordinated by the DP (Hajdari, 2024; Novakov & Čolić, 2024), based on top-level decision-making and political values, the DP seems to fit more closely the prototype of a national conservative party. This observation is reinforced by the DP’s joining the ECR group in the EP after the European elections.
The Homeland Movement and the process of European integration
Soon after it was founded and against a backdrop of soft Euroscepticism and concerns over interethnic relations, the DP began expressing discontent with longstanding external pressures from the Venice Commission (Council of Europe) and the EU. This discontent centred on the pre-accession push (in 2000–2002) for Croatia to adopt the ‘fixed’ quota arrangement for ethnic minority representation in the Sabor (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b: 32).
On a macropolitical level, the soft Eurosceptic stance of the DP leadership is reflected in its framing of the European Union as ‘a confederal union of sovereign states and not as a supranational, federal, state with the prospects of becoming unitary’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2020a: 3). Along the same lines, the DP prescribes that Croatia must develop closer relations with the Visegrad Four (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) because of ‘the shared historical experiences, as well as the similar positions and outlooks on the European and global developments’ with this group of countries (Domovinski Pokret, 2020b, p. 30). Herein, it should be underlined that, despite its soft Eurosceptic orientation, the DP never advocated for the development of more extensive relations between Croatia and ‘alternative partners’ in global politics, like Russia, China or the BRICS. In this light, the DP seems to align with the staunchly and idiosyncratically sovereigntist stances regarding relations with both the West and non-Western powers that characterize parties to the right of the HDZ in Croatian politics (Petsinis, 2024).
Seizing the geopolitical moment: The Homeland Movement’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
The DP leadership has been quick to seize the geopolitical moment occasioned by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Aligning with a more general tendency across Croatia’s political divide, the party’s leader, Ivan Penava, and other high-ranking members have drawn (at times oblique) links between the legacies of Croatia’s Domovinski Rat (1991–1995) and Ukraine’s struggle to resist Russian aggression.
On 24 February 2022, Penava stated, ‘Our party expresses its firm solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people … we hope that this conflict will last as shortly as possible with as few human and material losses as possible’ (Ibid.). He also urged the state authorities to organize the accommodation of Ukrainian refugees in Croatia and efficiently allocate the material resources required. In addition to highlighting the commonalities between the Homeland War and the developments in Ukraine, Penava cast doubts on the competence of the government to manage a migration crisis in Croatia (Ibid.). More emphatically, on 6 April 2022, the party’s MP Stipo Mlinarić praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy for dealing with the ‘fifth column’ in Ukraine and deplored the fact that ‘the HDZ-led government has not done the same with the ‘fifth column’ that operates from within the Serb Democratic Independent Party’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2022b).
Nevertheless, between Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the end of 2023, the DP suffered a plateauing, if not a significant decline, in its popularity vis-à-vis the HDZ and other minor contenders on the right. As indicated in several public surveys conducted by the Promocija Plus, 2X1 Komunikacije and Ipsos polling agencies between March and December 2022, the DP had been lagging behind both Možemo and the centre-right, conservative Most (‘The Bridge’) party (Europe Elects, 2024). Therefore, to reverse this decline in popularity, the DP started putting greater stress on the rapidly increasing cost of living and the government’s alleged incompetence in dealing with galloping inflation (Domovinski Pokret, 2022c).
Due to this change of course and the party’s gradual adoption of a strategy more focused on domestic policy, which persisted until the Croatian parliamentary and the European elections, no extensive or concrete references were made to the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, the DP’s Ustani i Ostani! (‘Stand Up and Remain!’) political program, which the party launched for both the national and the European elections, cites Ukraine only on one occasion: in the section about national defence and the need to upgrade the equipment of the Croatian armed forces – the navy, in particular. In greater detail, the program stresses that: ‘Ukraine demonstrated how the use of new military technologies, such as drones, can paralyse even the naval forces of global superpowers (namely, Russia)’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 23). Otherwise, any references by DP to the EU during its campaign for the European elections concentrated on more general aspects of European politics in accordance with the party’s founding principles regarding the process of European integration.
The Homeland Movement’s campaign in the 2024 European elections
Right at the beginning of the Ustani i Ostani! policy document, the DP underlines its fundamental stance on state sovereignty within the EU: “Many types of crises during the last years (e.g., the financial crisis, Brexit, the migration crisis, and the COVID-19 crisis) have demonstrated that the EU reacts in a slow and non-coordinated manner whereas, at the same time and under these irregular circumstances, the member states prioritize their own interests exclusively. This is why Croatia must prioritize its own interests, too (Croatia comes first!)” (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 26).
At a later point in the same policy document, the DP leadership reiterates that it is a sovereigntist party which primarily views the EU as ‘a community of equal and sovereign states and nations rooted in Christian foundations and principles … the detachment of the EU from its Christian roots has resulted in great identity confusion’ (Ibid). Furthermore, the party contends that ‘decisions about Croatia should be taken by Croatian politicians in Zagreb and not by Brussels-based officials’ (Ibid). With specific regard to the area of national defence and the prospects for the EU’s strategic autonomy, DP holds that any projects designed to bolster EU defence policy must not be misused by Brussels in order to weaken further the sovereignty of nation-states (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 26).
In addition, DP adamantly opposes Serbia’s accession to the EU, in no small part due to the legacies of the wars of the 1990s in which Serbia is seen as the aggressor against Croatia. Contrarywise, the party underlines that ‘the things that Croatia must demand without compromise from Serbia, which committed aggression on Croatian territory, are payment of war reparations, a thorough search for disappeared persons, and the return of cultural treasures that were stolen during the war’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024a: 28). At the same time, the party accuses the Serbian government of ‘promoting the ideology of Greater Serbia and openly endorsing Russian aggression against Ukraine’ (Ibid).
Apart from Ustani i Ostani!, individual MPs reiterated these standpoints concerning major policymaking areas on the EU level, both in the Croatianand the European Parliaments, on numerous occasions. Regarding immigration, in the aftermath of a knife attack in Mannheim, Germany, in May 2024, Ivo Čaleta-Car, a DP deputy in the Sabor, warned in a speech that:
The EU is slowly turning into a unitary supranational state. The EU is trying to create an unnatural federation of states that will be held together by migrants and their descendants through mixing with the indigenous populations (Domovinski Pokret, 2024b).
In the same speech, he stressed: ‘Yes to the EU as a community of sovereign nations! No to the EU as a superstate!’ (Ibid.). Moreover, DP concisely but effectively publicized and summarized its main standpoints on European politics through the party’s official pages on social media (e.g., X and Instagram). On the party’s Instagram page, for instance, its main slogans for the European elections feature as follows: “‘Croatia comes first!’, ‘We stop the extension of the Brussels’ jurisdiction!’, ‘For a counteraction to the globalist agendas!’, ‘No to the propagation of gender ideology! We do not want gender ideology in our schools!’, ‘For the protection of national borders!’, ‘For the demographic rebirth of Croatia and Europe!’, ‘Rebirth of the village for the rebirth of Croatia and Europe!’, ‘For a Europe that respects its Christian foundations!’” (Domovinski Pokret, 2024c).
Here, it should be noted that several party candidates incorporated slogans related to policies on the EU level into their campaigns for both the national and the European elections. Stipe Mlinarić, for instance, reiterated that ‘Serbia cannot join the EU before it pays Croatia war reparations for the villages and towns that it destroyed’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024d), Meanwhile, other party candidates pledged to fight for ‘a Europe that respects its Christian foundations’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024e), reiterated that ‘Croatia must retain its sovereignty in Europe’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024f), and underlined that ‘Christianity is the foundation of the EU’ (Domovinski Pokret, 2024g).
Embedding the European in the national: A contextual analysis of the Homeland Movement’s political strategy in the European elections of 2024
With a turnout rate of 21.35%, Croatia had the lowest voter participation among all EU member states in the most recent European elections. Croatians’ lack of interest is underscored if we compare this turnout with the much higher rate of 62.30% in the Croatian parliamentary elections that took place on 17 April 2024 (Republika Hrvatska, n.d.). With European elections held shortly after the parliamentary ones, it is clear that Croatia’s major political leaders prioritized the latter. This was especially true for DP, which emerged as a ‘kingmaker’ after the national elections. Faced with a choice between continuing its role as a perennial gadfly berating the HDZ establishment from opposition or seeking real power on the inside, DP leader Ivan Penava chose the latter, aligning his party with the HDZ and joining it in a governing coalition.
Considering the relatively more ‘parochial’ outlook of the Croatian electorate on global and European politics, the DP’s leadership has since 2020 been rather eclectic and places primary stress on those developments that, due to sociocultural catalysts, might resonate more directly with the ‘collective subconscious’ of the party’s target groups. This appears to have been a fairly commonplace practice for right-wing political actors in Croatia. For instance, between 2018 and 2019 (two years prior to the formation of the DP), the ‘right-wing faction’ within the ruling HDZ extensively capitalized on public grievances vis-à-vis the guidelines of the ‘Istanbul Convention’ for LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality (Milekic, 2018). Along comparable lines, the DP sought to capitalize on the shockwaves that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine generated across Croatian society by drawing tentative links between Ukrainian resistance and the Croatian Domovinski Rat in the 1990s. However, after 2023, the party leadership switched to a more domestic-focused strategy, emphasizing the rapidly increasing cost of living and Croatia’s galloping inflation as part of the endeavour to reverse its declining popularity.
Consequently, in its political program and the individual campaigns of its candidates and the party’s social media, the DP adopted an even more eclectic pattern of engagement for the European elections that consisted of (a) frequent and repetitive use of ‘catchphrase’ slogans (e.g., ‘Croatia comes first!’) and (b) a paramount, yet synoptic, stress on these aspects of European politics that resonated the most with the party’s founding principles and the dominant trends on identity politics among its target groups in the electorate. Therefore, primary importance was placed on (a) the purported need to safeguard Croatia’s state sovereignty from any extension of the EU’s jurisdiction; (b) calls to veto Serbia’s accession to the EU; (c) opposition to the alleged propagation of ‘gender ideology’ and counter-proposals in increase birthrates in Croatia and the rest of Europe, and; (d) the effective protection of national borders and stricter regulation of immigration from ‘third’ countries outside of Europe.
In the long run, it appears that this more eclectic strategy, which prioritized the embedment of the European in the national, facilitated the DP’s galvanizing of the groupness of its electorate, especially in the strongholds of Eastern and Western Slavonia (i.e., the IV. and V. electoral districts) and claim the third spot behind the HDZ and the SDP (but ahead of Most and Možemo)in both the parliamentary and European elections. Slavonia, as a whole, is a region that was heavily scarred by protracted warfare during the first half of the 1990s. In particular, Vukovar, an Eastern Slavonian town on the border with Serbia along the western bank of the Danube, has been established as a ‘master symbol’ of resistance to the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in Croatian nationalist imagery. Most importantly, Vukovar is the town of which Ivan Penava has been the local mayor since 2014. The long-term evolution of the HDZ–DP coalition will demonstrate whether the party leadership is keener on (a) alleviating its stances on Euroscepticism and identity politics to secure its status more firmly inside the halls of power or (b) seeking a ‘new’ pact with the ideologically compatible ‘right-wing faction’ within the ruling HDZ in an attempt to trigger a more decisive swing of the governing coalition towards the right.
(*) Vassilis Petsinis (PhD Birmingham UK) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Corvinus University (Institute of Global Studies) in Budapest, Hungary. He is a political scientist with expertise in European Politics and Ethnopolitics. His Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA-IF) individual research project at the University of Tartu (2017–19) was entitled: ‘Patterns and management of ethnic relations in the Western Balkans and the Baltic States’ (project ID: 749400-MERWBKBS). Vassilis Petsinis is a specialist in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the author of the monographs National Identity in Serbia: The Vojvodina and a Multiethnic Community in the Balkans (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Cross-regional Ethnopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe: Lessons from the Western Balkans and the Baltic States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), as well as other academic publications that cover a range of countries as diverse as Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Greece.
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Table 1 illustrates the diversity of populism. Overall, there were about 90 populist parties across all EU member states on the eve of the 2024 European election, with varying ideological profiles, backgrounds and electoral sizes. Essentially, populism was found both left and right of the European political spectrum, as well as at its centre, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
After losing three presidential elections and considering the difficult socioeconomic conditions, one would have expected AKEL to recover and present itself as a leading force. This did not happen. Despite the relatively positive performance in the local government elections, the result for the European elections (21.5%) and the loss of one seat constitute a major defeat for the party. Obviously, the causes of this result run deeper than the election campaign. AKEL’s leadership should, among other things, ask itself why citizens expressed their disdain for the current state of political affairs by supporting a candidate without a political background and concrete policy proposals, among other candidates, rather than the largest opposition party.
I begin the present chapter by sketching a typology of the constituent segments along the broad spectrum of the European right wing and situate the DP within it. I then offer a summary of the DP’s founding principles vis-à-vis further European integration and clarify the extent to which these principles were reflected in the party’s stances and active engagement in the latest European elections. I then identify the main catalysts behind the DP leadership’s success in mobilizing target groups and galvanizing electoral support for the party.