Divided But Dangerous: The Fragmented Far-right’s Push for Power in the EU after the 2024 Elections

Superficial stability in the ECR

The ECR, having existed since the EP’s 2009–2014 legislative period, has proven to be relatively stable. This is particularly true when considering that no other far-right group founded alongside the ECR has survived more than one parliamentary term. Born out of a cooperation of the UK’s Conservative Party under then-Prime Minis­ter David Cameron, Poland’s Law and Jus­tice party (PiS) and Czechia’s Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the ECR was the third-largest group in the 2014–2019 legislature, comprising 77 MEPs; yet, by the end of the 2019–2024 period, it was only the fifth-largest group. After some reshuffling, it is now the fourth-largest group, behind the newly formed PfE. Following the departure of the Tories from the EP in the wake of Brexit, the ECR group was subsequently dominated by the PiS, with Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy initially holding the role of junior partner in the last legislature. How­ever, since its success in the Italian parliamentary elections, and certainly fol­lowing the 2024 EP elections, it has clearly come to dominate the ECR, both in terms of numbers (24 MEPs) and policy. Other than the Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s ODS and the Brothers of Italy, other ECR member parties are coalition partners in governments (Croatia and Finland) and sup­porters of a minority government (Sweden).

Despite its relative stability, the ECR ex­perienced several shifts in the 2014–2019 and 2019–2024 legislative periods, which changed its numbers and composition. The ECR started the 2014–2019 legislature with 70 MEPs and ended it with a net gain of seven MEPs, despite the loss of the AfD delegation. This gain was mainly the result of new members from the EPP group, in­cluding Italian MEPs who switched from Forza Italia to the Brothers of Italy, and the controversial entry of the right-wing nation­alist Sweden Democrats party. During the 2019–2024 parliamentary term, the ECR also grew, from 62 MEPs at the beginning to 69 at the end. This was again mainly due to Italian MEPs switching to the Brothers of Italy (six in total), but also due to the Finns Party’s re-entry to the group, which left the ID group when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

As of the beginning of the 2024–2029 legislative term, the ECR’s 78 MEPs come from a total of 23 national delegations, 11 of which were already members of the ECR in the previous term, whereas nine come from parties that have either been newly elected or had not previously belonged to a political group. Once a part of the Greens-EFA group, the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union joined the ECR, and one Esto­nian MEP switched from the ID to the ECR.

Overall, the ECR continues to be characterised by a high degree of continuity in terms of its constituent delegations from Italy, Poland and, to some extent, Czechia. It is especially viable in terms of the net number of its MEPs when compared to the now dissolved ID group. However, it is also largely comprised of very small and new national delegations. Less than half of the national delegations have more than two MEPs. It is therefore expected that the group will face fluctuations and difficulties in coordinating the many small delegations in the current legislature.

Patriots for Europe (PfE): a new alliance centred around Orbán and Le Pen

Arguably the most surprising development in this context took place in June 2024, when Hungary’s Fidesz, Austria’s FPÖ and Czechia’s Yes party (ANO) joined forces to present the founding document of the Patriots for Europe. In their manifesto, the authors describe a Europe that they believe to be dominated by non-transparent insti­tutions and illegitimate bureaucrats whose ultimate aim is to replace the Europe of nation states with a “European superstate”. In their view, in the spirit of the supposedly genuine Europe of nations, the institutions need to be reconquered and European politics fundamentally reoriented in order to restore the sovereignty of the nation states. In addition, they primarily focus on their desire to significantly limit migration and unconditionally preserve what they see as Europe’s fundamental Judeo-Christian heritage.

The now third-largest group in the EP is primarily made up of national delegations from the dissolved ID group; this does not include Germany’s AfD, which was expelled from the ID shortly before the election, or Czechia’s far-right Freedom and Direct Democ­racy party (SPD). From other groups, the PfE was able to win over Czech poli­tician Andrej Babiš’s ANO party, which had left the liberal Renew Europe group, and the Spanish Vox party, which came from the ECR. From the parties newly elected to the EP, Portugal’s Enough! party (Chega!), which has been strengthened at both the national and European levels, the Latvia First party, Greece’s Voice of Reason party, and Czechia’s Oath and Motorists’ electoral alliance, directly joined the PfE.

Dominant national delegations in the PfE over the next few years are likely to be France’s NR (30 MEPs) and Hungary’s Fidesz (11 MEPs), especially since Viktor Orbán will have a direct vote in the European Council. Italy’s right-wing League party (Lega), which once set the tone in the ID, suffered heavy losses, losing 14 seats (from 22 to 8), and will need to pass the baton to the NR.

With 83 current members, the PfE is con­siderably stronger than the ID group was during the 2019–2024 legislature, when it comprised 59 members before the expul­sion of the AfD. Unlike the ECR, the PfE consists of only 13, on average relatively large, national delegations, which could simplify internal coordination. Further­more, within the old ID group, differences in the foreign and security policy ideas of France’s NR on the one hand and Italy’s Lega on the other were particularly poign­ant: While Lega adopted a deliberately con­structive approach in the last legislature, the NR adopted a decidedly anti-Western stance, rejecting support for Ukraine (see SWP Comments 8/2024). With the weaken­ing of Lega and the inclusion of a Fidesz that is just as anti-Western as the NR, the pendulum is likely to swing in favour of Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orbán.

It remains to be seen whether the PfE, unlike the former ID, will be more than a strategic alliance and present a more united front in the EP. While of the former ID par­ties only Lega had been part of a national government, the PfE is still close behind the ECR in this respect – with Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz now leading a government and Geert Wilders’ PVV being a part of the governing coalition in the Netherlands as of July 2024.

Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) as the fundamental opposition

After it was expelled from the ID, the AfD delegation succeeded in building the ESN group around itself. The so-called Sofia Dec­laration of April 2024 is generally regarded as its founding document. Similar to the PfE’s manifesto, it invokes the narrative of the “dictatorship of an unelected [EU] bureaucracy” that would undermine the national sovereignty of member states and, from the ESN’s perspective, bring about an existential crisis to Europe and threaten its values. Its platform issues are reducing bureaucracy, rolling back the alleged influence of multinational corporations and starting peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Considering that the PfE’s manifesto and the ESN’s Sofia Declaration are very similar in their objectives and wording, the true political divisions be­tween the PfE and the ESN are blurry.

It is expected that the AfD delegation will dominate the ESN in terms of both policy and personnel in the current 2024–2029 legislative session, in large part because 14 of the group’s 25 total represen­tatives come from the AfD. The political spectrum represented within the ESN is very broad: It hosts members from France’s right-wing conservative Reconquest party, Hungary’s Our Homeland Movement party (which is considered far-right and revisionist even in Orbán’s Hungary), Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist Revival party, and Czechia’s SPD (which openly advocates for Czechia’s exit from the EU). Against this backdrop, the ESN currently seems to be a catch-all for those right-wing MEPs who, for various reasons, have not joined the ECR or PfE. At the same time, only three of the ESN’s eight national delegations (namely, those from Bulgaria, Germany and Poland) have more than one MEP in the group. Any serious policy initiatives would therefore have to be built on co-leadership from the German and Polish far-right parties.

Nonetheless, the question of whether or not to continue supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia could prove to be a particu­larly divisive issue in this newly constituted group. Whereas the AfD together with the Bulgarian, Slovakian and Hungarian delega­tions are Russia-friendly and critical of fur­ther support to Ukraine, the Polish and Lithuanian delegations (4 MEPs in total) share the national perception of Russia as a direct threat and are more inclined to support aid to Ukraine. However, the main­tenance of political harmony within the group is particularly important due to the fact that the ESN houses 25 MEPs from eight member states, just above the mini­mum 23 MEPs from seven member states that is required to maintain group status. So far, none of the ESN parties are part of their national governments.

Far-right influence in the Council

The third strategy recognises that the cordon sanitaire is particularly fragile in the Council of the European Union and the European Council, where national governments nego­tiate compromises regardless of their parti­san compositions. Therefore, this strategy promotes pragmatic engagement with gov­ernments led by or including extreme right-wing parties. In 2000, 14 of the then 15 EU member states declared that they would “not promote or accept any bilateral official at the political level with an Austrian gov­ernment integrating the FPÖ”. Those days are long gone. Today, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is generally accepted as a key political player at the EU level, as well as in bilateral relations, including by Germany. The reaction of national EU governments to the formation of a Dutch government led by the PVV (PfE, formerly ID) has been largely pragmatic. After internal delibera­tions, the majority of the Renew Europe group also decided not to sanction their Dutch member, the People’s Party for Free­dom and Democracy (VVD), even though it supported the coalition government negotiated under the leadership of Geert Wilders.

When the Council of the European Union makes decisions that require un­animity, governments led by or including parties from the ECR and PfE now have a say and can veto, for instance important foreign and security policy initiatives. As noted above, constituent parties of the ESN are not yet part of any national governments. Nonetheless, the far-right is also close to being able to attain a blocking minority in qualified majority votes in the Council. Doing so requires at least four national governments representing 35 per cent of the EU population. Governments with ECR and/or PfE participation currently account for only 26.1 per cent. If far-right parties were to gain seats in one large member country (e.g. France or Spain) or several medium-sized ones, they could constitute a blocking minority and thus have decisive influence even over majority decisions. However, a closer look at past EP legis­latures shows that open blockades in the Council of the European Union and the European Council, even by right-wing gov­ernments, are extremely rare. Most deci­sions are made by reaching a consensus and open confrontation is avoided. The EU has ways of effectively dealing with blocking member states, for example by linking decisions to packages or by engaging in selective cooperation in a way that excludes the blocking states. However, these tactics have only been tested with a small number of veto holders; if the number of far-right governments increases, the effectiveness of these strategies is likely to decrease. That still means that governments including far-right parties can be expected to co-shape all major EU legislation.

Consequently, the extent of the influence of far-right parties within European politics will not be decided in the EP. In terms of citizens’ votes, majorities that depend on the support of far-right parties are likely to remain rare in the coming legislature. Even if it becomes more difficult to form a major­ity when voting on controversial proposals, the ability of the EP to act will not be threatened by the gains or fragmentation of the far-right this term.

The strategic challenge for mainstream parties, especially those on the centre-right, can be formulated as follows: the more they try to maintain the cordon sanitaire vis-à-vis the ECR and vis-à-vis governments in which PfE parties participate, the more they en­courage rapprochement between the ECR, PfE and ESN. At the same time, there are a growing number of parties within the EPP that are forming coalitions with far-right parties in their own countries, and they are promoting this at EU level. For their part, the far-right groups may seek to continue to exploit their already well-cultivated narra­tive of victimisation and perpetuate their portrayal of an ‘EU elite’ that is deny­ing them access to institutional and finan­cial opportunities. However, increased involvement of the ECR in the EP has the potential to further splinter the far-right; at the same time, the ECR’s increased accept­ance normalises its policies and blurs the boundaries of the far-right. How the EPP parties manage this balancing act will largely determine the degree of influence that the far-right parties will have in the EP and beyond.