The return of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) to government through a coalition caps a year of gains made by far-right parties across Europe. After the October legislative election, the FPO joined hands with the People’s Party to form the government, which will be led by the People Party’s 31-year-old leader, Sebastian Kurz . The FPO was founded by a former Nazi functionary in 1956. When it was part of government last time, in 2000, other European nations responded strongly – some cut trade ties with Austria, while Israel recalled its ambassador, citing the FPO’s anti-Semitism. Such responses are unlikely to come by this time, which points to the mainstreaming of far-right politics in the continent. The FPO has been in a resurgent phase in recent years. Its candidate Norbert Hofer was defeated by a narrow margin in last year’s presidential election. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front won about 34% of votes in the May presidential election, almost double of what her father secured in 2002. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany emerged as the third-largest party in the Bundestag in the September election. In the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom become the second largest party in Parliament after the polls in March. Far-right parties are gaining strength in several other European countries such as Italy, Greece, Sweden, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia.
What’s common among these parties is a hard line anti-immigrant view and a belief in extreme nationalism and Euroscepticism. Some of them are openly anti-Islam, like in the Netherlands, while some others, like the National Front, call for exiting the European Union. They also attack establishment parties over widening inequality and joblessness in their countries. In their world view, refugees are taking away employment opportunities and mounting security challenges. Unsurprisingly, these parties gained support in the wake of the economic and refugee crises, shaping political discourses around “radical Islam” and immigration.
Europe saw a similar upsurge of right-wing parties during the Great Depression. While there were competing narratives by the left and the right then to channelise the anger of the disaffected sections towards the establishment, the left is almost absent in these societies now. The social democratic or centrist parties are embedded in the establishment, representing the same economic policies that are blamed for the current crisis. The conservatives are moving further to the right, blending their pro-market economic policies with the divisive social agenda of the far-right. In Austria, for example, the People’s Party is as hard line as the FPO in tackling immigration. In most countries where the far-right is making gains, the polity is divided between parties with neo-Nazi roots and conservatives who are not reluctant to embrace those roots. The Austrian coalition between the conservatives and the neo-Nazi FPO underscores this trend, which, as this year’s developments suggest, is likely to continue in the coming months, if not years.
