EU elections could be major turning point for Europe's far-right

Six months ahead of the EU elections, polls predict strong results for the two most right-leaning groups in the European Parliament.

Transcript

00:00 A major shift is taking place in Europe.

00:06 According to an analyst, the European elections in June might be a turning point for far-right

00:11 forces in the EU.

00:13 Those parties are already far from being on the fringes of the political spectrum, taking

00:18 on their own government roles or collaborating alongside mainstream right-wing parties.

00:24 Ahead of June's European elections, an analyst from European Elects predicts that the far-right's

00:29 result could be summed up as the second political force in the European Parliament.

00:35 According to our data, as of December 2023, the highest result of the Identity and Democracy

00:45 Group of Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini in three years was a group scoring a 12% result.

00:52 As of the European Conservatives and Reformists of Francisco Meloni or the outgoing Polish

00:57 government of Juan Justus, that result is around 11%, which means that combined the

01:05 two, disregarding the likelihood of those two forming a group together, which is one

01:10 of the things that we were discussing, that would be a result of 23%, which would be around

01:19 the same as the result of the European People's Party and the centre-right.

01:23 Despite the general electoral increase of the extreme right, it will be difficult for

01:29 far-right parties to unite and form a common political group, mostly because of the ideological

01:34 differences between them. This could lead to a cooperation on specific issues to change

01:39 the tone and the decisions at European level, as well as the general shift towards right-wing

01:45 policies.

01:46 There is a substantial difference in how those parties perceive matters such as European

01:51 integration or approach towards Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, matters such as emigration

01:57 especially, are ones that are quite often the main driving factor as far as people voting

02:04 for those parties go, which is why even if there is no merger of PCR and ID and Swedish,

02:11 this could certainly affect the coalition that could be formed after the next election,

02:17 especially with movements such as the Marko Grybors of the EDP, who has been very much

02:23 insistent on cooperation with PCR.

02:28 Not only are the parties divided, but so are the European member states. As the analyst

02:33 reminds us, the vote for the European elections goes through the national perspective, which

02:38 often differs greatly between the member states.

02:42 Thank you.

02:44 - Thanks for having us. - Thanks for having us.