COMMENT:
Europe needs to start the fightback against Trump now
Even before Donald Trump re-entered the White House in triumph this week, Europe’s rightwing was already adjusting their sails to the new prevailing wind.
Europe’s resurgent far right has long hailed the coming of the king across the water. Some, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, have been longing for this moment for years. The Hungarian premier crowed this week, “So the great attack can start. Hereby I launch the second phase of the offensive that aims to occupy Brussels.”
But now the centre-right (and some liberals and social democrats) are also making their obeisances to the American populist strongman. European politicians are rushing to assure the new president that they will jump at his command – their only question is how high — in a clear sign of the rottenness of the European centre at a time when it should be steeling itself to protect liberal democracy against its modern day enemies.
Trump’s outriders such as Elon Musk have been threatening Europe even before his motorcade arrived, and have met little if no resistance. Even when Trump himself made extraordinary and outrageous territorial claims on Greenland, Danish and EU leaders hardly made a peep.
“There is the danger of bilateral responses, what we have to offer to the new king of America. Everyone is looking how we can please this guy,” Ursula Plassnik, former Austrian foreign minister, warned a seminar at the Czech Institute for International Relations in November.
A weakened Europe – with traditional motors France and Germany consumed by domestic political woes – appears ready to give way to Trump on key parts of the bloc’s policy framework. Already political leaders are rushing to promise to buy more American LNG and hike defence spending (typically by buying more from US arms companies).
On Ukraine, doomsayers and Kremlin apologists are sensing growing support for their false counsel that Europe should cut and run. The EU has even postponed discussion on Russian sanctions until after his inauguration.
On the Green Deal, there also appears to be mounting pressure to ratchet back. On social media regulation that infuriates US tech giants, the EU has signalled that it will have a rethink. Only significantly on Trump’s threat to impose tariffs are there signs that Europe is prepared to push back.
Trump’s election has also helped to normalise illiberal politicians, Ruth Deyermond, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, told a UCL webinar in November.
“‘We’re not marginal, we’re really moving with the tide of history’,” she said the far right were now saying, predicting that “they will walk taller, play a bigger role, be more difficult and play hardball … The awkward squad will get more awkward”.
But she argued the mainstream right are really the ones to watch. “We can see figures in these conservative parties who say ‘we need to reassess, to take Trump seriously’,” she said. “They want to do a double take, to get behind a winner.”
The truth is that the rise of Europe’s far-right has long been facilitated by the weakness and lack of scruples of the continent’s traditional centre-right. Time and time again the centre-right has both formed governments with the far right and adopted its illiberal ideas in an attempt to stay relevant, thereby normalising politicians and ideas that are opposed to everything a liberal and democratic Europe stands for.
Currently the radical or far right is in government or has a share of power in nine governments out of 27 in the European Union, with a commanding position in Hungary and Italy. Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico also arguably should be added to that number, though his party is ostensibly leftwing.
The far right is also likely to add to its tally this year following the elections in Austria, while Calin Georgescu looks likely to become Romanian president at the second attempt in May, after the 2024 election was cancelled because of suspected Russian interference.
Also in May, Poland’s radical rightwing Law and Justice party will hope Trump’s victory helps it retain the presidency, while Czech populist leader Andrej Babis will be even more confident of returning to power this autumn.
The number of European Council members with a strong radical or far right presence is already close to a blocking minority and that point looks almost certain to be reached in the near future.
This trend was confirmed this month when the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP) agreed to open negotiations on taking part in a government led by the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO). The scandal-ridden FPO, which was formed by Austrian Nazis after the war, plays with Nazi dog whistle slogans, promotes hostility towards immigrants, campaigns against the EU, and has had longstanding links with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
In a first for the party, the FPO came top in Austria’s general election last September with 29%, ahead of the country’s two traditional main parties, the OVP with 26% and the Austrian Social Democrats (SPO) with 21%.
Three month-long negotiations between the OVP and the SPO to keep the FPO out collapsed earlier this month, prompting the resignation of OVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer. Liberal President Alexander Van der Bellen felt he had no alternative than to nominate FPO leader Hubert Kickl as premier. Under its new leader Christian Stocker, the OVP has indicated that it is now willing to serve under Kickl.
The FPO has taken part in Austrian coalitions before but if such a government is formed, this would be the first time it will be calling the shots. The days when the OVP and the SPO were able to divide up power are well and truly over.
An FPO-led government would have serious implications for EU policymaking, notably on Ukraine and Russia, where already Hungary and Slovakia criticise the bloc’s approach. The FPO is so suspect on Russia that when Kickl was interior minister between 2017-19 in an OVP-led government, Nato allies were forced to cut intelligence ties with Austria because of the risks of leaks to the Kremlin.
“Kickl has kept his powder dry on Russia but his policy positions are very Russia-friendly,” says Marcus How of VE Insight, a Vienna-based investment risk advisory. “Kickl is opposed to sanctions, and especially opposed to aid to Ukraine within the European Peace Facility. He is even sceptical of non-lethal aid to Ukraine, and opposed to [hosting] Ukrainian refugees.”
Kickl could be a stalwart ally for Orban, How argues, because Austria is not reliant on EU aid. “Kikl is not like Fico, as he can’t easily be held over a barrel. He is much more ideological, he will be a much more reliable figure for Orban.”
If the FPO is able to form a government, it will give a boost to the EU’s far right and radical right parties, whose rise was highlighted by last summer’s European Parliamentary elections. Kickl would join Orban and Italy’s Georgia Meloni as far-right premiers in the EU, and he could be joined by Babis after the Czech elections this autumn.
If that were to happen, all the core parts of the old Habsburg Empire – Austria, Czechia and Hungary, together with Slovakia – would be controlled by populist Eurosceptic parties.
An FPO-led Austria could also have a knock-on effect on Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is in second place in opinion polls ahead of the general election on February 23. “Will the Austrian government become some kind of template for the far right in Germany?” How ponders.
The rise of the FPO in Austria is mirrored by the rise of the far right in the European Parliament. After last June’s European Parliament elections, Kickl was one of the founders of the Patriots for Europe grouping, together with Orban and Babis. They have subsequently been joined by France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega, Spain’s Vox, Netherland’s PVV, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and the Danish People’s Party, becoming the third largest grouping in the parliament.
Several of these parties are already in government, notably Hungary’s Fidesz (leading the government since 2010), and Italy’s Lega and the Dutch PVV, both as part of coalitions.
Italian premier Meloni’s Brothers of Italy has yet to join the grouping but is close to Orban. More worryingly, France’s National Rally is widely expected to win the next presidential election in 2027, if it is not held earlier.
Alongside the Patriots for Europe is the even more extreme Europe of Sovereign Nations group, which includes the AfD, which is expected to come second in the German federal election next month, ahead of the ruling Social Democrats.
Both party groups are likely to become noisier and more obstructive following Trump’s victory.
This populist surge comes as the EU’s traditional leading political families – the Social Democrats and the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – are suffering a prolonged crisis of confidence.
The EPP, to which the OVP belongs, is if anything undergoing the more profound crisis. It has often indulged the far right. Only in 2021 did Orban jump before he was pushed out of the EPP, while Bulgaria’s populist Gerb – which formed the new government there earlier this month – remains a member.
Leading EPP figures have indicated that the group should be open minded about working with the far right in the European Parliament, particularly on migration and on reversing the last Commission’s Green Deal.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (nominated by the EPP) has already shown a willingness to be more accommodating to the views of the far right on migration and the Green Deal, as part of a bargain to use their votes if needed to get the rest of her programme through.
A further risk now is that, following Trump’s victory, the EU could back down on trying to discipline Orban – who has become a totemic figure for the US far right – ignoring his hollowing out of democracy, corruption and abuse of human rights, and his more and more overt sabotage of the bloc’s efforts to counter Russia.
“A new Trump administration might be willing to back [populist forces] in their intra-EU struggles or help out in their individual challenges,” Jeremy Schapiro and Zsuzsanna Végh wrote in a recent policy brief for the European Council on Foreign Relations. “In exchange, these forces could use their influence in the Council to, say, reduce retaliation from the EU against his trade policies or for increasing fossil fuel and weapons purchases from the US.”
Europe is therefore in danger of giving in to the far right without putting up a fight, something that would be dangerous at any time, but which is disastrous when the continent is threatened by Russian aggression, both on its borders and in hybrid attacks within.
Yet the victory of the far right, abetted by Trump and his minions, is still far from certain. Even in Central Europe, populism’s stronghold, Fico’s government in Slovakia is wobbling, and Orban faces a serious challenge from Peter Magyar’s Tisza party at the 2026 Hungarian election.
But only by standing firm against Trump and the far right, and by meeting the real – primarily economic – concerns of their discontented voters, will Europe’s centre be able to do this.
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