Election results across the European bloc illustrate a clear trend
In Germany Alternative für Deutschland came second in the elections, with huge support in the east of the country, despite a campaign that stumbled from scandal to scandal. Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom won the most seats in the Netherlands, as did the Freedom Party in Austria, while Vlaams Belang topped the poll in Belgium.
Admittedly when you are dealing with 27 separate elections, with varying issues dominating the campaigns in different countries, it is always going to be difficult to fit the sometimes contradictory results into a neat narrative. And in some countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark, the extreme right wave did not materialise. The far-right Chega party also underperformed in Portugal, finishing third but failing to repeat its strong showing in parliamentary elections earlier this year.
The centre right EPP, which is the political family of both European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Fine Gael, remained the biggest group in parliament, bucking the trend that saw all other centre parties lose seats. In the past year the EPP’s strategy has been to ditch more progressive policies in areas such as climate and the environment, for fear of driving farmers and rural voters into the arms of more right-wing parties.
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