2017: When Europe went far-right

By Saarthak Anand

October 2017 saw Austrian politics take a turn to the right, as the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) of Sebastian Kurz emerged as the leader in the nation’s parliamentary polls. More striking was the fact that the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), founded in 1956 by ex-Nazis, won 26 percent of the votes. As a result of the negotiations that followed, the FPÖ managed to get control over such crucial portfolios as defence, the interior, and foreign affairs.

As foreign minister, Kurz had argued in favour of closing down the Balkan route, which is used by a large number of refugees to enter Europe through Greece and a few other nations. On immigration, there is little that separates Kurz and the FPÖ. During the campaign, the ÖVP’s leader had vouched for providing less state support for children of immigrants, and a ban on the burqa. The similarity was so striking that Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the FPÖ, had accused Kurz of stealing from his party’s campaign.

Kurz has urged the European Union (EU) to consider establishing safe areas in refugee countries of origin to halt immigration to Europe, and to “back it militarily”. He is also expected to implement several other measures to limit the rights of refugees living in Austria.

Rising acceptance of the right

It would be astonishingly simplistic to view the outcome of the Austrian polls in isolation. These results happen to be only one in a series of similar electoral verdicts across Europe which have paved the way towards the mainstreaming of previously secluded far-right parties. In France, the National Front of Marine Le Pen managed to grab 34 percent of the popular vote in May’s Presidential run-off. The anti-Islam and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) emerged as the third-largest party in the German polls in September, garnering 13 percent of the votes and entering parliament for the first time. This was after Geert Wilders’ PVV had won the second-largest share of votes in the Netherlands in March. Europe’s latest election saw the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) getting more than 10 percent of the votes in the Czech Republic. The SPD had campaigned under the slogan “No to Islam, No to Terrorists”.  

Following Brexit and Trump

The results in the previous year come on the heels of similar shocking verdicts in 2016 in the United States and the United Kingdom. While voters in the UK had opted to bid farewell to the European Union through a referendum, the US electorate, in a surprise result, elected controversial businessman Donald Trump as President. Trump had mounted a sharp and contentious anti-establishment and anti-immigrant campaign. These results over the past two years have come as a cause of great concern to proponents of open borders and liberalism. Central European nations such as Poland already have far-right parties dominating the political arena.

In November, the world was shocked as some 60,000 people, many of them Fascists, gathered in the Polish capital Warsaw for an “Independence March”. Amidst the sea of banners, messages included “Clean Blood” and “Europe will be White”. Also attended by citizens of neighbouring countries, the event sent the world a clear anti-EU and anti-immigration message. Europe’s fault-lines had been brought to the fore like never before. Poland has already refused to take in refugees, claiming them to be a threat to security.

The immigration crisis

Opposition to immigration has served as a rallying point for the far-right players, and the refugee crisis has emerged as a window of opportunity to get their message across to the people. 2015 witnessed the largest influx of refugees into Europe since the Second World War. More than two million people had requested asylum in the EU between 2015 and 2016.  

Clearly, the anti-establishment sentiment is largely prevalent in today’s Europe, and the far-right has not been the only beneficiary of it. Last year, Emmanuel Macron rode to power in France after having built his party, En Marche, from scratch in just about a year’s time. Incidentally, he had defeated the Eurosceptic Le Pen in the run-off and is now emerging as the leader of the EU, especially as his rise has coincided with the weakening of Angela Merkel in Germany.

Their very xenophobic and anti-immigration leanings which had relegated these parties to the fringe in the not-so-distant past are fuelling their ascension now. The concept of immigration is being sold as a civilisational clash, while the migrant is being projected as the ‘other’, having little in common with the ‘natives’. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had warned in 2015 that the Muslim population might eventually outnumber the Christians in Europe, as Muslims place a greater emphasis on “family, children, (and) community cohesion”.

Often, the popular rhetoric employed for this purpose is nasty. Lashing out at migrants from the Middle East and Africa, Czech President Milos Zeman had once said his nation would “be deprived of women’s beauty, because they’ll be covered from head to toe… unfaithful women will be stoned and thieves will have their hands cut off”.  Alongside anger and discontent, it is the fear of the alien which is being tapped into, as was done by former Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski when he had remarked that immigrants would bring diseases, parasites and protozoa into Europe.

Collaboration among the parties

Unlike most of the other parties, Europe’s far-right outfits have been able to demonstrate a remarkable degree of cooperation. In December, many of these parties got together in Prague to send forth a message of solidarity, as they praised the FPÖ for joining the new government in Austria. The idea was loud and clear. “In Europe or in our country, people should behave as Europeans or they should leave. We want a Europe which respects national individuality, national identity and freedom”, said Tomio Okamura of the SPD. The parties also called for a Europe sans the EU.

While some might consider it an exaggeration to claim that the EU faces an existential crisis, the threat it faces cannot be denied. A quarter of the parties in the EU Parliament, the union’s primary democratic forum, are ethnic nationalists. Europe has powerful nationalist autocracies on its flanks in the form of Turkey and Russia, serving as models to many of these resurgent parties within the EU. Angela Merkel, long considered the leader of the EU, is facing problems in Germany.

Complacence of the establishment

Making the job easier for these parties has been the reluctance of the establishment to concede the problems that may arise due to unchecked immigration. What is required is active and generous engagement, rather than blatant dismissal of the issues raised by the far-right. It must be acknowledged that an unregulated flow of migrants does have the potential to pose security risks to any nation. The traditionally dominant parties currently have no answer to the far-right.

At the same time, there need to be constant efforts to ensure the integration of refugees in the European nations. An uneducated and unemployed person, native or refugee, is always more likely to pose a greater challenge to stability. The refugees need to be cared for, and provided with adequate educational and work opportunities.

Featured Image Source: European Parliament on VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND