Populist and euroskeptic parties have emerged in many countries of the EU, although not all go as far as wanting a Brexit-style departure.
From Thursday last week until today, European voters have been going to the polls to choose a new parliament. Gains for euroskeptics and the far right would be a new blow for the bloc’s established leaders, as the Brexit crisis rumbles on.
Here is a selection of nations with significant euroskeptic, anti-establishment and anti-immigration parties:
Britain
In a referendum on June 23, 2016, Britons voted to quit the EU by 52 percent to 48 percent in an outcome that stunned the EU and the wider world.
The divorce process has been fraught and two extensions to the original March 29 deadline mean that Britain paradoxically still took part in the European Parliament elections on Thursday, on the eve of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s resignation announcement.
At the last elections in 2014, the UK Independence Party capitalized on the strong anti-EU mood to score a major victory by taking 24 of the nation’s 73 European Parliament seats.
The party is now split, between those who have stayed and those who have joined the newly formed Brexit Party of former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, which led opinion polls before the election.
The Netherlands
The Freedom Party of Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders and the emerging Forum for Democracy party — both back leaving the EU — fought in Thursday’s elections for the 26 Dutch seats.
According to an exit poll, the Forum for Democracy party — which is not represented in the outgoing parliament — would win three seats and the Freedom Party would slump to one seat from four.
The Freedom Party became the second-biggest force in the national parliament in 2017 polls, securing 20 of 150 seats.
France
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, which has 14 of 74 French European Parliament seats, has toned down its anti-European message, but maintains a tough anti-migrant stance.
Euroskeptic right-wing parties The Patriots, which is pushing to leave the EU, and Debout la France (France Stand Up) have two seats each.
On the far-left, France Insoumise (France Unbowed), with three seats, is against certain EU treaties, but does not back pulling out of the bloc.
Germany
The anti-migrant and anti-euro Alternative for Germany won its first seats in the national parliament in 2017, with nearly 13 percent of votes.
It is Germany’s single biggest opposition party, but holds only one of the nation’s 96 European Parliament seats, losing six after a series of defections.
Italy
Italy’s ruling coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and anti-immigrant League party won last year’s national election on an anti-migrant and anti-EU platform, but stepped back from demands to exit the eurozone single currency bloc.
The populist government clashed with most of its EU partners when it closed its ports to refugees, and has sparred with Brussels over budget numbers and targets.
Of the nation’s 73 European Parliament seats, six belong to the League and 11 to the Five Star Movement.
Hardline Italian Minister of the Interior and League head Matteo Salvini has called on nationalist parties across Europe to join forces and form a new alliance after the election.
Hungary
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban regularly criticizes the EU, particularly over immigration policy.
Having attacked in vain the EU top court’s quotas meant to share out refugees around the bloc, Orban’s populist government faces the threat of European sanctions over the rights of minorities and refugees, as well as academic and press freedoms.
His Fidesz party, which has 11 of 21 Hungarian European Parliament seats, was in March suspended from the center-right European People’s Party, the EU’s biggest political grouping.
Austria
The far-right Freedom Party fell into crisis days before the elections when a scandal led to the fall of the coalition government that it had joined with mainstream conservatives.
Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache on Saturday last week resigned as vice chancellor after he was accused of promising public contracts in return for campaign help from a fake Russian backer before the 2017 general elections.
The party’s government ministers stepped down two days later.
While defending a hardline policy on migration, the party, which has three of the nation’s 18 European Parliament seats, has abandoned its flirtation with a referendum on whether to leave the EU.
Czech Republic
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has locked horns with Brussels over migration.
Babis, who is the nation’s second-wealthiest man according to Forbes, faces charges over an EU subsidy scam. He has consistently rejected the accusations.
Babis’ populist and centrist ANO party holds only two of the nation’s 21 European Parliament seats, but emerged as the biggest winner in October 2017 national elections to form a minority government.
The anti-migrant Freedom and Direct Democracy party, looking to bag its first European Parliament seat, favors a “Czexit” from the EU.
Poland
The euroskeptic ruling conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) holds 14 of the nation’s 51 European Parliament seats. The nation faces EU sanctions over what Brussels sees as consistent threats to the independence of its judicial system and civil society.
Denmark
The Danish People’s Party, with three of 13 European Parliament seats, is anti-migrant. It favors reform rather than leaving the EU and backs the minority center-right government, but does not participate in it.
Estonia
The anti-EU, far-right EKRE party has seen a surge in support, becoming the third-largest party in national elections in March.
Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas has drawn the party into a three-party coalition with five ministerial posts. It holds no seats in the current European Parliament.
Finland
Finland’s far-right, anti-immigration Finns Party more than doubled its seats in April national elections, closely tailing the leftist Social Democrats who won only narrowly.
The euroskeptic party, which has two of 13 the nation’s European Parliament seats, does not advocate leaving the EU altogether, but wants reforms of the bloc.
Portugal
The Socialist Party government is in alliance with the Left Bloc, which wants Portugal to leave the eurozone, and the Communist Party, which envisages leaving the euro and possibly also the EU. The two euroskeptic parties have four of the nation’s 21 European Parliament seats.
Romania
The Social Democratic Party government has had several run-ins with Brussels and has been threatened with “swift” consequences by the European Commission over proposed judicial reforms seen as a threat to the independence of the courts.
The party’s strongman, former Romanian prime minister Liviu Dragnea, was on Monday to find out the result of his appeal against a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for electoral fraud.
Sweden
The far-right Sweden Democrats, with two of 20 European Parliament seats, went into last year’s parliamentary elections with the promise of a referendum on a “Swexit”, but have since softened their stance.
The Sweden Democrats now wants the EU to work on a new treaty limiting areas of cooperation to those not infringing core elements of sovereignty, thus excluding defense, foreign policy and immigration. Failing that, it wants Sweden to reconsider membership.
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
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