For a brief moment, it looked like the long-standing love affair between most of Europe’s right-wing, nationalist, anti-immigration and EU-critical politicians with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin would prove a fatal mistake. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has certainly embarrassed them, but so far at least, it does not appear to have done them terminal harm.
A French newcomer to the scene, former TV pundit and far-right presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour, whose extreme Islamophobic rhetoric has done much to make National Rally leader Marine le Pen seem reasonable, has seen his poll ratings plunge in part because of his previous avowed admiration for Moscow.
However, Le Pen, despite cozying up to Putin — including at least one Kremlin meeting with him, support for his annexation of Crimea and campaign loans from Moscow banks — has barely been affected by it at all.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Moscow’s greatest ally among EU leaders, has just been returned to power for a fourth term. Italian Senator Matteo Salvini might have been shamed by a Polish mayor for his Putin T-shirt, but his problems long predate that.
Polling in the Netherlands for Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders, who felt obliged to call Putin’s war “a blatant and condemnable violation of Ukrainian sovereignty,” has edged down, but hardly dramatically, despite his long years of strident pro-Russian rhetoric.
Certainly, the conflict has deprived the far right of a core pitch to voters: its dire warnings of the impact of mass immigration. Most Europeans have responded to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II with open arms.
However, Putin’s war could also bring the populists a major boost as the cost of sanctions against Russia starts to bite with soaring energy and food prices. Le Pen’s decision to concentrate her campaign on cost-of-living issues has already proved farsighted.
Gasoline is more than 2 euros per liter — far higher than the level that sparked France’s gilets jaunes rebellion — and electricity, gas and bread prices are surging. Add in the costs of the green transition, and far from being harmed by their Putin ties, Europe’s far-right populists could be heading for an electoral bonanza.
Viktor Orban
Hungary’s self-confessedly “illiberal” leader was sufficiently emboldened by his election victory to declare that his brand of “Christian democratic, conservative, patriotic politics ... is the future” — and to take a dig not just at “Brussels’ bureaucrats,” but at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, too.
In power since 2010, Orban has flouted democratic norms, tightening the noose around academics, non-governmental organizations and the media, while restricting freedoms for migrants and the LGBTQ+ community. He also stands accused of diverting millions in EU funds to friends and family.
With Orban safely installed for another term, a victory for his ally, Le Pen, would transform the right’s impact on the EU.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski
An outlier among Europe’s nationalist-conservative politicians because of his longstanding warnings about Moscow’s true intentions, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country’s de facto leader, has seen his ruling Law and Justice Party gain a polling boost from the war, which has transformed his country into an EU good guy for its fierce opposition to Russia and gargantuan humanitarian effort over Ukrainian refugees.
However, the government’s bitter rule-of-law dispute with Brussels over judicial independence, its culture-war attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and abortion rights, and its bridge-building with anti-EU, pro-Putin figures such as Salvini and Le Pen show little sign of abating.
Kaczynski, too, would welcome a Le Pen presidency for his ongoing tussle with Brussels, although the two would differ radically over Russia policy.
Matteo Salvini
Salvini, a former Italian deputy prime minister, congratulated Orban on his win in typically bombastic terms: “Bravo, Viktor — alone against everyone, attacked by the fanatics of uniform thinking, threatened by those wanting to eradicate Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots, slandered by those wanting to eliminate values such as the family, security and freedom — you won again.”
However, since entering the country’s broad coalition government, the leader of the populist Lega Nord party has been eclipsed in the polls by rival Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni, with whom he will likely need to cooperate ahead of elections in the spring of next year.
Jimmie Akesson
Polling at a steady 19 to 20 percent of the vote, the populist Sweden Democrats party and its leader have moved away from a longstanding anti-NATO stance and no longer rule out joining the alliance “if the security situation worsens even more.”
They have also abandoned their former policy of leaving the EU, saying — like many of Europe’s far-right parties — that they want to reform the bloc from the inside. A hardliner on crime and particularly immigration, Akesson could potentially join a right-wing coalition headed by the opposition Moderates party after Sweden’s elections in September.
Santiago Abascal
Spain’s far-right Vox party last month entered a regional government for the first time under a deal with the right-wing Popular party, which could offer a blueprint for power-sharing between the two parties after the next general election, which is due by the end of next year.
Founded in 2014, Abascal’s party has become the country’s third-largest political force by exploiting culture-war issues, railing against political correctness, fomenting discontent with Spain’s two main political parties and capitalizing on the fallout from the 2017 Catalan independence crisis.
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