Europe could be the first victim of the recent surge of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which stands to benefit the most from the dissatisfaction with the current coalition government in Berlin and could shake up next year’s European elections.
Most leaders probably breathed a sigh of relief following the inconclusive results of the Spanish election on Sunday, as the far-right VOX party considerably underperformed and even lost seats compared to the general election in 2019.
However, it would be premature to expect that the far-right wave in Europe has ebbed away, as the spectre of right-wing populism is currently on the rise in the continent’s largest economy: Germany.
While it has long been seen as a bulwark against nationalist parties, with German society being particularly sensible to anything that could remotely resemble its dark past, the tides seem to have turned.
The far-right AfD is consistently polling at second place with over 20% in recent months – outperforming Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD and coming dangerously close to the conservatives who top the polls.
In next June’s European election, however, AfD could perform even better, as EU elections are still widely considered to be second-order elections in Germany.
Historically speaking, voters think that the stakes are not high in European elections and are, therefore, more likely to vote for opposition parties in protest at the incumbent government.
We already got a taste of this more flexible voting pattern in the last European election in 2019, where the Green Party managed to garner the most votes in its history- more than doubling their results compared to the Bundestags election two years before.
This time around, the pendulum could swing in the other political direction, with the far right likely managing to get a major boost from this second-order election effect.
As things stand right now, the AfD is polling 4% behind the leading conservative CDU. If this trend is to continue, even first place in the European election no longer seems impossible.
The reasons for the recent surge in popularity of the AfD are multifold – from the economic recession and skyrocketing inflation numbers, all the way to the current infighting in the conservative CDU/CSU over its leadership.
The AfD party leadership is already attempting to put the blame for Germany’s economic downturn on the EU, and especially its sanction regime against Russia.
“Especially in the Ukraine war, the EU has pursued a policy that is not in the interest of the citizens, with eleven sanctions packages against Russia by now,” party head Tino Chrupalla recently told EURACTIV.
“Citizens are paying the price for sanctions and embargoes.”
And the AfD is already bringing itself into pole position for the European election. This weekend, the far-right party will already adopt its programme for the election – the first of all parties in Germany.
Its current proposal for the campaign programme does not bode well, as it states that the EU is “not reformable” and should be dissolved. While the party later indicated that it will tone down the programme a little bit, a win for the AfD would still be a devastating blow for Europe.
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The Roundup
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The EU’s ‘solidarity lanes’ initiative to export Ukrainian grain via European routes could replace the Black Sea route after Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the UN-brokered deal, the bloc’s agriculture chief said.
The European Commission is in the process of considering whether to grant further farming exemptions from environmental measures following requests from member states, although it does not yet have a clear idea about the impact of previous derogations on food security.
Poland is prepared to introduce its own unilateral ban on agricultural products imported from Ukraine if the EU decides against extending the protective measures already in place, the Polish agricultural minister told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.
The European Commission opened on Tuesday a formal investigation into French multimedia conglomerate Vivendi’s acquisition of publisher Lagardère over fears that the deal was implemented before the EU authority’s green light.
Don’t miss this week’s Health Brief, the last one before the holidays.
Look out for…
- Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides participates in informal meeting of Health Ministers organised by the Spanish Council Presidency in Las Palmas on Friday.
- Informal meeting of competitiveness ministers on Thursday-Friday.
Views are the author’s
[Edited by Alice Taylor/Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
