Far-Right Surge or Status Quo? Understanding the 2024 European Elections

By Wim De Ceukelaire

July 4, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

European Parliament - Inauguration of the new parliamentary term. Flickr.

Between June 6 and 9, residents of the European Union (EU) went to the polls to elect a new European Parliament. There were fears in advance of a breakthrough by the far right, which was not surprising given the recent electoral successes of extreme nationalist, conservative, and elitist parties, often with xenophobic tendencies and fascist roots or inspiration.

Six of the 27 EU countries—Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and the Czech Republic—have far-right parties in government. Sweden’s minority government relies on the support of the nationalist Sweden Democrats, the second-largest force in Parliament.

In the Netherlands, the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) of Geert Wilders won 37 seats in the 150-seat Parliament after a campaign filled with xenophobia and anti-Islam sentiment. His parliamentary group is much larger than those of the red/green alliance of European Commissioner Frans Timmermans and the liberals of former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who won 24 and 25 seats respectively. At the time of the European elections, Wilders was busy forming the most right-wing government in his country’s recent history.

The Netherlands is a relatively small country, but the surge of the extreme right caused concern in the large countries of Europe as well. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, a party that traces its roots back to the fascist movement of Benito Mussolini, has been in power since October 2022. In France, the Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen topped the pre-election polls, while the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland, the extreme right force in Germany consistently scored better in opinion polls than any of the three governing parties.

This Europe-wide success of far-right parties was indeed confirmed by the European election results. The party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni won more than 28 percent of the national vote. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National was the party of preference for almost one in three voters, humiliating President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, which garnered only half as many votes. In Germany, the AfD won almost 16 percent. This might be less spectacular than the Italian and French extreme right, but it’s still better than each of the three members of the current traffic light coalition: the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Liberal Party.

But has the European Parliament indeed been taken over by the extreme right? Not really.

Their electoral successes in a number of countries is undeniable, as the examples of Italy, France, and Germany have already illustrated. The surge of the far right has been at the expense of traditional centrist parties. In the European Parliament, the Greens and Liberals lost about one-fourth of their seats each. The Social Democrats seem to remain stable, though, losing only four seats.

But the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) Group is even growing and remains by far the largest group in the European Parliament. Together, these four traditional political groups still have a majority in the European Parliament.

Besides, although the extreme right parties did make progress in the June 2024 elections, they are hopelessly divided among themselves on key issues such as economic policy, foreign relations, and EU integration. For example, while some advocate for complete withdrawal from the EU, others support renegotiating membership terms.

As a result of these divisions, there are two parliamentary groups that contain far-right parties. On the one hand, there is the right-nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists, dominated by the Fratelli d’Italia and Poland’s Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) Party. On the other hand, there’s the far-right Identity and Democracy Group, whose members include France’s National Rally but also the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs and Geert Wilders’s PVV. The AfD was a member of this group until it was expelled weeks before the European elections following a series of scandals.

And then, there are a number of far-right parties that do not belong to any of those parliamentary groups because they are not deemed acceptable or have already been expelled. Hungary’s Fidesz party became the largest among them when they quit the center-right European People’s Party in 2021. There’s also a whole range of smaller parties. The AfD joined their ranks just recently, as it is unaffiliated to any parliamentary group.

There are two reasons, therefore, why the extreme right is not able to dominate the European Parliament. On the one hand, the centrist parties, and especially the EPP Group, remain relatively strong. Besides, the far-right groups are too divided among themselves to become dominant.

The fear of a takeover of European mainstream politics by fringe, extreme right parties seems to be unfounded, at least for now. Nevertheless the influence of the extreme right is growing undeniably. The real danger might come from the blurring of the lines between mainstream parties and the far right.

We have seen recently how extreme right parties have started to emulate center-right parties in exchange for a seat at the table, especially if they can join the government. Interestingly, Giorgia Meloni’s party is the only one of the three major Italian far-right parties that is unequivocally in favor of NATO and support to Ukraine. Once in government, she became an outspoken supporter of military support. Geert Wilders, from his side, was ready to swallow much of his extreme party program in exchange for his ascension to government. The French Rassemblement National is also undergoing rebranding, and rallies with slick firebrand Jordan Bardella do not resemble the nostalgic National Front meetings of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party’s founder.

This is not the only way the lines between the mainstream and the extreme right have become blurred. The center-right is also moving slowly but surely to the right. The shift of center-right parties towards the right can be seen in the EU’s new migration pact, defended by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, which includes measures originally championed by the far right such as tougher deterrence through border control and stricter asylum procedures. Likewise, it also reinforces the extreme right’s framing of migration as a threat to European values. The real danger, therefore, might not be that of a takeover of European politics by extreme-right parties but of the alliance between the old center-right with the ‘new’, supposedly more moderate, extreme right.

The only remedy to the rise of the extreme right is therefore to be sought not in the center but to the left of the political spectrum. The left is positioned to counter the far right because of its commitment to inclusive and egalitarian policies, which directly oppose the exclusionary and nationalist rhetoric of the far right.

Unfortunately, the left is also divided and is missing a clear strategy. There is the new phenomenon of Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany, which is combining restrictive proposals on immigration with a more progressive economic program, although with 6.2 percent in the European Parliamentary elections they scored less than anticipated. La France Insoumise (France), the Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas (Greece), and Partij van de Arbeid van België / Parti du Travail de Belgique (Belgium) scored well, winning the support of some 10 percent of their countries’ electorate. The left is showing resilience in other countries as well. Eventually, it’s these parties and the social movements they are rooted in that will have to provide an answer to the rise of the far right in Europe.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

 

A Moment Of Truth For Europe’s Far-Right – Analysis

Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze with Hungary's Prime Minster Viktor Orbán Credit: Viktor Orbán, X

 April 20, 2025 

By Observer Research Foundation

By Shairee Malhotra

In February 2025, Europe’s far-right leaders gathered in Madrid at an event hosted by Spain’s far-right Vox party. Under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again” (MEGA), the event was inspired by Trumpian ideology.

The European far-right’s affinity with United States (US) President Donald Trump’s populist worldview is well-known. They share similar conservative and nationalist outlooks on themes ranging from anti-migration and anti-establishment to Euroscepticism and hostility towards climate policy and multilateralism. Trump’s return to power in his second term was seen to validate and legitimise the ideas of the European far-right. As Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban reiterated at the MEGA event, “Yesterday we were the heretics, now we are the mainstream”. Influential figures within the Trump administration, such as tech billionaire Elon Musk, have explicitly aligned themselves with the European far-right, including Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), France’s Marine Le Pen, and Italy’s conservative League Party.

Yet despite their broad ideological convergence with the MAGA (Make America Great Again) brigade, Washington’s tariffs and America first policies have disconcerted Europe’s far-right leaders given their direct impact on European national interests and economies.

On April 2, Trump announced a sweeping 20 percent tariff rate on European imports in addition to the previously imposed sectoral tariffs on metals and automobiles. Even though this rate has been temporarily reduced to 10 percent, the tariffs have rendered politicians of all colours in Europe nervous as they are estimated to impact European growth by 1.5 percent or 260 billion euros.

Many far-right politicians did what they do best, which is blame the European Union (EU). Vox’s president Santiago Abascal called out EU regulations and taxes as the greater danger. The AfD blamed Brussels for not reducing the high European tariffs on cars, while its leader Alice Weidel simultaneously criticised the tariffs “as fundamentally bad for free trade”.

There are widespread concerns that the tariffs would disproportionately impact the traditional voter bases of far-right parties, and impact economic growth in Europe, revealing a fundamental clash between the MAGA and MEGA agendas.

The industrial fallout from Trump 2.0 

Based on her warm interpersonal ties with Trump, far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who described the tariffs as “wrong” but defended Vice-President JD Vance’s attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference, descended into Washington on April 17 aiming to ease transatlantic trade tensions and pitch herself as an interlocutor between Brussels and Washington. With exports to the US valuing 70 billion euros, Italy maintains a significant trade surplus with the country, and a 10 percent tariff rate is expected to incur losses of 7 billion euros for the Italian economy. In other divergences, Italy still remains below the 2 percent threshold, spending only 1.49 percent of GDP towards NATO, which is far below Trump’s 5 percent expectation. While softening the tariffs remained an elusive goal despite Trump’s gushing of Meloni as a “friend” doing “a fantastic job and taking Europe by storm”,  Meloni emphasised a mutually beneficial EU-US trade deal and the goal of “making the West great again” during her visit to the White House.

In France, despite general support for the far-right, Trump remains unpopular. The findings of a pre-US election YouGov poll revealed that Le Pen’s supporters preferred Democrat candidate Kamala Harris over Trump. Le Pen’s National Rally party had already distanced itself from the president’s more radical rhetoric to broaden its voter base. Simultaneously, the party, struggling after Marine Le Pen’s disqualification from contesting French elections, will need to retain the support of its core electorate, in particular the working and middle classes expected to be hit hard by the tariffs and whom it has vowed to protect.

The tariffs are also expected to garner losses of €4.3 billion in 2025 for the Spanish economy, with negative prospects for the agri-food sector and machinery and electrical equipment industries. Data from Spain’s Center for Sociological Research posits that the far-right Vox party is supported by “one in five farm workers and 10% of industrial workers”, who are likely to be harmed by the tariffs. In Hungary, the EU’s notorious outlier, headed by its far-right premier and ardent Trump supporter, Orban, tariffs will impact the country’s economic growth, which relies on the success of its automobile industry.

In general, Trump’s tariffs are expected to severely hit sectors such as automobiles, food and beverages, agriculture and those employed by these industries, thereby adversely impacting European farmers, winemakers, cheese producers and other manpower.

Despite the far-right’s Euroscepticism, only through the collective strength of the EU, which coordinates trade policy and its single market of 450 million consumers, can member states respond effectively to Trump’s trade wars. Far-right parties may walk a tightrope between balancing their ideological support for Trump while defending their economic interests by backing the EU response and maintaining domestic credibility. Whether they use their close ties with the Trump administration to forge bilateral deals for their nations or leverage their influence in favour of wider European interests remains to be seen.

Meloni has so far struck a balance between maintaining close ties with the US president while advocating for European interests. During her visit to the White House, she spoke in favour of a transatlantic trade deal and convinced Trump to visit Rome soon, where she would facilitate his meetings with other European leaders. But as the voter base of the European far-right bears the consequences of the economic disruption unleashed by the American president, the nexus between Trump and the European far-right may start to crumble.

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• About the author: Shairee Malhotra is the Deputy Director of the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation 
• Source: This article was published at the Observer Research Foundation 

S

Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.

Would proportional representation in the UK benefit the far right?

Claire Jones 

Yesterday

LEFT FOOT FORWARD


Proportional is clearly more democratic than first-past-the-post. But European far-right shifts and the growth of Reform UK are not good optics

.

The 2024 UK general election has strengthened the call for proportional representation (PR). Labour won 63% of the seats with 34% of the votes, an absurd disproportionality that wouldn’t have occurred if Westminster used PR.

PR is clearly more democratic than first-past-the-post (FPTP). But European far-right shifts and the growth of Reform UK are not good optics. It is ‘challenging’ to claim that 97 Reform MPs (under PR) is as acceptable as five (under FPTP). To promote PR as a compelling alternative to FPTP, these concerns need to be addressed.
Europe

European far-right parties can’t now be dismissed as peripheral minorities. With youth support, the AfD’s anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, pro-Putin, climate change denialist, Björn Höcke, performed spectacularly in East Germany’s recent elections. Far-right parties have also polled strongly in Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden.

Underlying these European shifts are socio-economic problems such as poor living standards, anxieties about immigration, cynicism about politics, and impatience with previous coalitions. According to the NAOC, it’s these kinds of ‘social factors lying outside of the voting system itself’ which largely determine the positioning of Europe’s parties. On this view, PR mirrors socio-economic trends but remains structurally able to withstand far-right take-overs.
Vulnerability and open questions

One defence of PR’s resilience is to claim that Trump, Belarus, and the Tory far right, show that FPTP is also vulnerable to extremism. But this is ‘whataboutery’. It merely presents PR as ‘no worse’, not ‘better than’, other systems.

The appeal to thresholds is also questionable. Thresholds keep out fringe parties but are regularly breached. Meloni’s FDL in Italy, Germany’s AfD, the Dutch Party for Freedom all made the grade.

Far-right popularity waxes and wanes. Support for Spain’s Vox party and Finland’s Finn Party recently dropped. But, in the context of Europe’s general rightward shift, this direction could reverse and, in Italy and the Netherlands, far-right support has increased. The current chequered picture is a snapshot in time and doesn’t show that we’ve reached the high watermark of far-right influence.

The UK potentially has two far-right parties: Reform UK and the Tories, capable of growing independently, merging, or forming a coalition. Under FPTP, Reform UK could gain power with a disproportionately low number of seats. But treating PR as the safer option assumes that the UK has an innate centrism which distinguishes us from Europe, that, regardless of our economic fate under Labour, we will retain our progressive majority, and that left and centre parties would work together, be jointly strong enough to retain power and firewall far-right parties. In the current unstable international political climate, with the rapid growth of far-right disinformation, these are open questions.
Sunlight

But PR remains the safer option, it’s argued, because, once extremist parties get proper political representation in PR systems, they become accountable. The greater number of Reform UK MPs yielded by PR would be drawn out from the shadows of their extra-parliamentary activities for full scrutiny.

But this, too, is questionable. Farage, for one, is under closer scrutiny regardless of which voting system is used, by virtue of being an MP. Exposure, if it happens, isn’t the sole prerogative of PR.

The defence also ignores the ability of parties to camouflage themselves as centre-ground. Marine Le Pen has backtracked on radical policies such as retirement reforms, banning the headscarf in public and backing Moscow. The Sweden Democrats, the Risdag’s second largest party, claims to have reformed to the centre, but its attitudes to the family, culture and ethnicity remain fully compatible with its far-right origins. Despite its moderate face, the party is deeply ambiguous and, arguably, positioned, in opportune circumstances, to gravitate back.

‘Centrist’ positioning also tends to be upheld by the mainstream media. The anti-Muslim views and PopCon involvement of Tory leadership contender, Jenrick, have largely been side-stepped by the press. That far-right parties can camouflage themselves in either voting system tells against the idea that PR has special powers to disclose their true nature.
Self-correction

But, it’s argued, the compromises required for inclusion in PR coalitions correct extremist thinking towards the centre. Moderation is protected because the extremist voice is subordinated by the necessity for co-operation and negotiation with other parties. Therefore, since decisions are consensual and power negotiated in PR, Geert Wilders is unlikely to play a role in running the Netherlands.

But, as Israel demonstrates, PR systems are not inherently centrist. Extremist parties can compromise to gain acceptance by a dominant centrist coalition but, equally, centrist parties can be pulled further right. They don’t have to do business with extremists like Wilders and the AfD but, as the far right is licenced to grow, so it can increasingly call the shots: “The mathematical truth … is that the stronger the AfD becomes … the harder it will be for centrist parties to avoid [collaboration]“, the German journalist Constantin Eckner says.

Across Europe, centrist European People’s Party members have adopted stricter immigration policies to secure trade deals with the far right. Similarly, far-right parties are coercing the centre by capitalising on rural resistance to ‘elitist’ green policies.

Since the far right also has significant pulling power, then it can’t be argued that, in PR, parties typically self-correct towards the centre: “When the far right organises ambitiously, coherently and internationally, across borders to win the big battles, [and] tells more compelling stories of loss, nostalgia, blame and fear, then it pulls the right, the centre right, and the centre left with it,” Neal Lawson, the Director of Compass has argued.

This rightward pull can also destabilise centre-ground coalitions. As far-right parties gain support, coalitions formed to oppose them are often unnatural bedfellows, hindered by chronic tensions over matters such as the extent of immigration restrictions, national fiscal autonomy vs the single market and the speed of net zero programmes.

France doesn’t use a PR system as such, but Macron is currently trying to co-ordinate the Left Alliance, a mishmash of parties to work together in a PR-style coalition against Le Pen. Moderate left parties are rubbing shoulders with pro-Russia, pro-conspiracy parties. 90% of socialists don’t want Jean-Luc Mélenchon as PM.

If the strategic grouping of centrist and left coalitions to counter far-right extremism can put the delicate centrist balance ‘in the balance’, then it isn’t a steadfast recipe for stability.
Normalising discourse

PR also lacks resilience where the far-right voice is legitimised via absorption into the official domain of government. PR helps to shape rightward political shifts because formal inclusion lends far-right content respectability and a new platform. Racist, Islamophobic and other hostile narratives insidiously become regular, accepted parts of the political discourse.

This process is accelerated by the demands of collaboration. María Guardiola, president of Spain’s People’s Party (PP) formed various coalitions with Vox, despite condemning Vox’s anti-woke values. By normalising Vox these pacts inclined the centre-right to vote for PP.

Social media is also critical. Far-right rhetoric shared by influential far-right commentators reaches millions across the ‘wild west’ of social media, but is also ingested by far-right political parties, bolstering their presumed right to purvey extremist content themselves.

PR’s inclusion of the far-right voice parallels the issue of freedom of speech. Both are democratic but give authority, new meaning and officialdom to harmful content. We grasp the need to ban harmful content online, yet cling to the idea that disallowing far-right political representation is an affront to democracy, despite its obvious harms.

This progressive ‘generosity’ also overlooks the tendency, illustrated by Orban’s long-standing ‘electoral autocracy’, of far-right parties to destroy the democratic ladder, once climbed, that led them to power.
Re-appraisal needed?

I’ve suggested that we can’t defend PR’s resilience against extremism by saying that FPTP is also vulnerable, that PR is protected by thresholds, or simply reflects external socio-cultural factors. Nor can we claim that centre-ground firewalling generally prevents extremist parties from getting a foothold, or that, where included, the process of negotiation necessarily tames them.

The idea that, in PR, far-right parties are centred by the need for consensus and negotiation, ignores their ability to camouflage themselves, to pull the centre rightwards, and to acquire majorities that liberate them from centrist constraints.

Furthermore, PR bears some responsibility for perpetuating extremism by legitimizing far-right narratives in ways that shape the political environment and culture. The relationship between PR and socio-cultural factors isn’t one way, but interactive.

Until recently, it we could safely assume the centre will hold. Now we can’t. We have to measure the implications of PR’s democratic inclusion of far-right parties in the current context of “profound menace” (Matthew d’Ancona). This is not to endorse FPTP, only to suggest that now is the moment to be careful what we wish for, and to re-think how, as advocates of electoral reform, we should present PR.

Claire Jones writes and edits for West England Bylines and is co-ordinator for the Oxfordshire branch of the progressive campaign group, Compass

This article is adapted from a piece published in West England Bylines

International Far-Right Fight Night Comes to Budapest

Michael Colborne 
May 3, 2023

This weekend, Budapest is due to play host to an event that far-right extremists have bragged online will be “the biggest radical nationalist event since coronavirus.”

Scheduled for 6 May, the organisers of ‘European Fight Night’ boast that the event in the Hungarian capital will feature up to 15 combat sports fights with participants from 12 different countries.

According to social media posts promoting the event, it will also play host to concerts and opportunities to buy merchandise from far-right fashion brands. Yet despite the publicity push, secrecy remains a priority. Similar events in Germany have previously been banned. Organisers have also stated attendees won’t be allowed to take photos or videos, and that they’ll kick out anyone who does or who shares the exact location of the event.

Observers have long sounded the alarm on the international far right’s use of combat sports to train up for physical confrontation and prepare for attacks against their perceived foes.

Some experts like Robert Claus, who wrote a book on the far-right martial arts scene, even say that combat sports events like European Fight Night also help facilitate international networking and recruitment.

Past research by anti-facist groups has linked the organisers of European Fight Night to some of the most secretive far-right extremist groups in Europe — including violent neo-Nazi groups that have been banned in several countries. One of the organisers of European Fight Night has even discussed links to local chapters of these banned groups in previous media interviews.

Meet the Organisers

European Fight Night, at least publicly, presents itself as having three primary organisers: Hungary’s Legio Hungaria, Germany’s Kampf der Nibelungen (“Battle of the Nibelungs”), and Pride France.

In a video released on multiple Telegram channels on February 27, members of each of the three main organising groups appeared side by side to promote the Budapest event and encourage their far-right comrades across Europe to attend.

A screenshot of a February 2023 promotional video for European Fight Night, featuring Legio Hungaria’s Béla Incze (left), Kampf der Nibelungen’s Alexander Deptolla (centre) and Pride France’s Tomasz Szkatulski (right). The video was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria: a far-right extremist march organiszed by the Bulgarian National Union took place two days before the video’s release, and this video was filmed near their headquarters.

Béla Incze heads up Legio Hungaria, a small far-right extremist group from Hungary. Incze once served as an assistant to a far-right member of Hungary’s parliament before reportedly losing his job for assaulting a police officer. Legio Hungaria, while not a large group, has managed to garner attention for their actions since being founded in 2018, including vandalising a Jewish community centre in 2019, destroying a Black Lives Matter statue in Budapest in 2021 and reportedly assaulting journalists covering a far-right event in 2023. Bellingcat also revealed in a 2021 investigation that a senior Legio Hungaria member played a key role in racist and homophobic displays at Hungarian national team football matches.

Hungary fans display a sign during the EURO 2020 match between Germany and Hungary. Bellingcat later revealed the banner had been in the possession of a member of Legio Hungaria prior to the match. Pool via REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach.

Alexander Deptolla is the public face of Kampf der Nibelungen. Started in 2013, Kampf der Nibelungen — often referred to by the abbreviation KdN — was once the largest far-right combat sports event in Europe, with its October 2018 version hosting an estimated 850 fighters and spectators. However, authorities in Germany banned the event in 2019, and KdN’s 2020 ‘online’ version saw fewer than half of the planned fights broadcast thanks to a police raid where some were being filmed ahead of time. Deptolla even took to social media afterwards to state that KdN wouldn’t be organising any more events in the immediate future. Nonetheless, German authorities reportedly restricted an abortive attempt at a September 2021 ‘National Fight Night,’ as a September 2022 court ruling upheld the ban on KdN’s events. Despite this, they are still the biggest of the three organisers of European Fight Night. Some German observers have argued that European Fight Night is essentially planned as a “replacement” event for KdN outside German borders.

Alexander Deptolla (left) interviewing French far-right lawyer Pierre-Marie Bonneau (right) at a far-right extremist event in Sofia, Bulgaria on February 25, 2023

 (Michael Colborne).

Tomasz Szkatulski of Pride France is a Polish-born French neo-Nazi who is reported to have helped organise and even participate in events like European Fight Night for several years. Szkatulski emerged from violent football hooligan scenes in the city of Lille, though now appears to spend much of his time in Bulgaria. Covered in Nazi tattoos, Szkatulski was reportedly convicted and sentenced to a year in prison in 2008 for assaulting a man of African origin with a bicycle chain; he has also reportedly been involved in other acts of violence, including alleged attacks on LGBT+ establishments. Szkatulski is also an associate of American far-right extremist Robert Rundo, who was arrested in Romania in March 2023 and is awaiting extradition to the United States.

Szkatulski did not respond to requests for comment from Bellingcat asking about his involvement in European Fight Night, past reports about his 2008 conviction (or alleged involvement in other apparent acts of violence), as well as his relationship and contacts with Rob Rundo.

When contacted by Bellingcat on Telegram to ask if he would like to respond to the details in this story, Deptolla of KdN said simply: “Hi. No thanks. Bye.” Legio Hungaria similarly declined to answer Bellingcat’s emailed questions about the details contained in this story and about Incze, citing unhappiness with Bellingcat’s reporter’s previous reporting on the group.

Behind the Scenes

There’s also a much less public side to European Fight Night and other far-right combat sports events, where some of the most secretive, publicity-averse extremist networks in Europe operate.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, has publicly stated the members of the Hammerskins, an international white supremacist gang, have been involved in organising Kampf der Nibelungen events since 2013. Journalists and researchers have also extensively documented the Hammerskins’ links with KdN.

As noted in Bellingcat’s 2022 investigation of a planned far-right extremist concert in Belgium, the Hammerskins have a significant presence across Europe. They tend to be secretive about their activities but are organised, with chapters, hierarchies and different patches for prospects and full members. Members of the Hammerskins have been extensively involved in criminal activities, including assault and even mass murder.

But it isn’t just Kampf der Nibelungen that works with the Hammerskins. In a February 2023 interview with an American far-right extremist website, Incze stated that his Legio Hungaria organisation had “a strong relationship” with the Hungarian Hammerskins, evidenced by their appearance and central role in previous events Legio Hungaria has hosted.

Incze also said in the same February 2023 interview that Legio Hungaria cooperates with the Hungarian branch of international neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18. Founded in the UK in the early 1990s, Combat 18 is closely associated with the Blood and Honour neo-Nazi group that is banned in several European countries.

In his 2020 book on Europe’s far-right combat sports scenes, German author Robert Claus reported that Tomasz Szkatulski had been affiliated with Blood and Honour structures in France; his Blood and Honour affiliations have also been discussed in other reports, although Szkatulski did not respond to Bellingcat questions asking about this. Claus also told Bellingcat he had knowledge that Blood and Honour associates would be hosting a concert the evening of 6 May for European Fight Night attendees.

Bellingcat was not able to independently confirm this claim. However, Blood and Honour’s Hungary branch has also promoted European Fight Night on its Telegram channel.

“These networks are generally very much involved in [far-right combat sports] events, either by hosting them themselves or by providing important organisational aspects,” Claus told Bellingcat, referring to the Hammerskins, Combat 18 and Blood and Honour.

A ‘Fundamentally Violent’ Ideology

But barely a week ahead of the event, European Fight Night’s main organiser had already run into trouble. On April 28 Deptolla took to KdN’s Telegram channel to tell fans that he and other German far-right extremists had been banned by authorities from leaving the country to travel to Budapest. Claus told Bellingcat that this German travel ban could seriously impact the event, since KdN and its German comrades are the largest of the three main organisers.

Even if European Fight Night doesn’t go on quite as its organiszers have hoped, Claus says it is still a dangerous event. “Violent key figures and groups of the neo-Nazi scenes from different parts in Europe are expected to come to Budapest,” Claus told Bellingcat. “Their ideology is fundamentally violent, fascist activists [who] use combat sports to train for racist attacks and other kinds of brute force.”

With a concert and other events alongside the fights, Claus warned, “the international neo-Nazi scene gets its combination of violence and sports, political hatred and music, the cultural package which pre-terrorist neo-Nazism has to offer.”

Bellingcat asked Hungarian national police about the European Fight Night event, whether they were aware of it and whether they had taken or planned to take any steps to prevent the event from taking place, or prevent any specific foreign extremists from attending. They did not respond before publication

Michael Colborne is a journalist and researcher at Bellingcat; he leads Bellingcat Monitoring, our project to research and monitor the far-right in central and eastern Europe. He tweets at @ColborneMichael.

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Belgium: National vote amid rise of far-right and far-left

As well as the EU elections, Belgians are voting in national and regional elections. The country is witnessing a rise of both the far right and far left, which could further complicate already tricky coalition building.

The national and regional elections set to see a surge for far-right Flemish separatists

Belgium goes to the polls on Sunday for national and regional elections. The elections in the linguistically divided country, which is split between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south, are being held on the same day as the European Parliament elections.

The national vote is set to see a surge in support for far-right Flemish separatists, which could make it difficult to form a new government.

The last time Belgium held a federal election, in 2019, it took 493 days for a new prime minister to be sworn in to lead a seven-party coalition government.

The wait was even longer after the 2010 vote, when the country took 541 days to form a government, still a world record. Now there are fears that this record could be broken as support grows for the far right in Flanders and the far left in Wallonia.

Far right ahead, but isolated in Flanders

Two Flemish nationalist parties are poised to win the most votes in Flanders, according to the latest opinion polls. More than 25% of the vote is expected to go to the far-right Vlaams Belang, which supports independence for Flanders.

The party's rise follows a broader pattern of gains for the far right across Europe and the victory of ally Geert Wilders in the neighboring Netherlands last year.

Close behind Vlaams Belang is the right-wing nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which could get around 20% of the vote.

The victory of the hardline party pushing for Flanders to become an independent country has fueled talk that Belgium could be heading for a breakup. But other parties in Flanders, including the N-VA, have a long-standing agreement to keep the far right out of government in the region.

N-VA leader Bart De Wever, who wants to be the next prime minister, has repeatedly insisted that he will not make a deal with Vlaams Belang this time either.

Wallonia looks to the left

While Dutch-speaking voters are expected to swing to the right, more of their French-speaking compatriots in Wallonia may turn to the far left.

The Socialist Party is expected to win as much as a quarter of the vote, but its long-standing dominance in French-speaking areas could be eroded by the far-left Workers' Party.

According to the latest Ipsos poll, the Workers' Party could get close to 20% in the Brussels region and 15% in Wallonia. This means that its number of seats in the federal parliament would rise to 19, compared to 12 at present.

Combined with the 26 seats predicted for Vlaams Belang, this means that some 45 seats will be taken by radical parties that are likely to be excluded from any government deal. The number of seats in the Belgian Federal Parliament is constitutionally set at 150.

Poorer Wallonia, whose decline began in the 1960s as Flanders' economy boomed, traditionally leans toward national unity because the region would likely find it difficult to survive economically on its own.

dh/rc (AP, AFP)

EU Parliament lurches right, but center holds

Ella Joyner in Brussels

DW/AFP

Far-right parties dealt blows to leaders in Paris and Berlin — but fell short of derailing the centrist majority in the European Parliament.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed supporters in Brussels on Sunday evening

 Piroschka van de Wouw/REUTERS

Dramatic gains for far-right parties in France and Germany failed to overturn the centrist working majority in the European Parliament as results poured in on Sunday night, putting Ursula von der Leyen on track to stay president of the European Commission until 2029.

"We won the European elections. We are by far the strongest party. We are the anchor of stability," the German conservative declared to journalists assembled in the European Parliament in Brussels as projections rolled in. "The center is holding."

Her center-right European People's Party (EPP) group has won 184 of the 720 seats, according to provisional projections from all 27 EU countries. In second place came the slightly weakened center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, with 139 lawmakers, followed by drastically pared-back liberal Renew group with 80 seats.

"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," 65-year-old von der Leyen told EPP supporters at a separate event earlier in the night, in a nod to the center-left and liberal runners-up she will need to work with to continue to push her agenda forward.

The AfD gained ground, but remains isolated in the European Parliament

Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance

After weeks of speculation about a far-right landslide, a series of stunning individual results for France's National Rally, the Freedom Party of Austria and the Alternative for Germany did not quite translate into an immediate shake-up of the EU political landscape.

But with more far-right members sitting in the legislature than ever before, their voices will have to be heeded going forward.
Bombshell in Paris

After four days of voting by almost 180 million people in 27 countries, the big shock of the night came from Paris where President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election before the final official tally was out.

His centrist pro-European party Renaissance scored just 15%, crushed by the far-right National Rally, which netted more than 30% of French votes cast.

"I've decided to give you back the choice of our parliamentary future through the vote. I am therefore dissolving the National Assembly," Macron said in an address to the nation. "Far-right parties [...] are progressing everywhere in the continent. It is a situation to which I cannot resign myself."

Theove is a huge gamble for Macron, as he apparently tries to regain control of the country. French voters will now head to the polls again on June 30 and July 7, just weeks before the Paris Olympics are due to kick off. Macron's own position is technically secure for now, as he was reelected as president in 2022, fending off National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen.

Far right jubilant, but divided — for now

In Paris, Le Pen immediately welcomed Macron's announcement. "We are ready to exercise power if the French give us their trust in these elections," she said. "We're ready to transform the country, to defend the interests of the French, to stop mass migration."

Le Pen is expected to contest the 2027 French presidential polls again, though 28-year-old member of the European Parliament Jordan Bardella now presides over the National Rally.

There was cause for celebration in both the hard-right parliamentary groups, the national-conservative ECR and the far-right ID, though increases were more modest than their members may have hoped. They took a projected 73 and 58 seats, respectively.

On top of those come a projected 15 European parliament members for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which brushed off a series of scandals to emerge as the second biggest force in Germany behind von der Leyen's Christian Democrats.

But the AfD remains politically homeless in Brussels: The party was ejected from the ID group last month after its lead candidate Maximilian Krah was engulfed by allegations that he spread Russian influence, that his parliamentary aide conducted espionage for China and by controversial comments he made about Nazi SS troops that riled ally Le Pen, among others.

Whether the intensely divided far right can form a broad coalition to maximize their influence will be one of the most closely watched issues in the weeks to come.

EU election results 'huge blow' for Germany's government 03:11null

"The biggest winners of this election are the two families of the radical right," analyst Pawel Zerka of the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations commented in a statement to DW. "Collectively, including non-affiliated parties like the AfD and [Hungarian] Fidesz, they seem close to surpassing the one-third seat threshold, enabling them to obstruct EP legislation."

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been pushing for this approach in recent weeks. Her Brothers of Italy party emerged on top in Rome, as did the Freedom Party in Vienna.

In Warsaw, Polish ex-prime minister and Law and Justice leader Mateusz Morawiecki told DW his party wouldn't support von der Leyen's bid to return as European Commission president as things stood right now.

Greens take a drubbing

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) came third, scoring its worst ever EU election result. One of the junior partners in Scholz's federal coalition government, the Greens, also took a heavy defeat, losing nine of their 25 seats in the EU legislature.

Across the EU, Green parties were not able to sustain the "Green wave" of record-breaking seats they achieved in 2019. Altogether they look set to lose 19 seats, retaining 52.

European Greens co-leader Bas Eickhout expressed hope that his party could still form a part of the majority coalition in parliament. "The only reliable, stable democratic coalition possible is with the Greens," he told journalists, warning that the future of the EU's flagship climate policies were at stake.

The runner-up center-left S&D group showed willingness to work with von der Leyen for a second term at the head of the EU executive branch on Sunday.

"It is clear that for us, we are open to strong cooperation with all democratic forces in this parliament," said the group's lead candidate Nicolas Schmit.

Von der Leyen has been accused by her political opponents, including the S&D, of courting right-wing forces in a bid to shore up support during her campaign.

The Left group in the European Parliament is projected to have lost one seat, holding onto 36, according to a provisional count.
What's next?

For Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations, "the key lesson of tonight is that the European Parliament election can matter a lot for national politics in the EU member states."

He pointed to Macron's snap election announcement, but also the sudden resignation of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose Dutch-speaking liberal party Open VlD fared badly in the EU polls compared to hard-line Flemish separatist forces.

In the weeks to come, von der Leyen will seek to have a majority of EU lawmakers confirm her for a second term as European Commission president. Her chances of doing so look stronger after Sunday, but reappointment won't be straightforward.

This campaign season was marked by online disinformation warnings and a spate of violent attacks against politicians across the spectrum, including an assassination attempt against Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Voting in all 27 EU countries closed at 11 p.m. CET on Sunday. The projections provided by the European Parliament are subject to revision, pending final counts.

But they set the scene for intense weeks of political horse-trading and alliance-building before the first sitting of the new legislature in mid-July.

Edited by: Ben Knight

Ella Joyner Correspondent@EllaRoseJoyner