How Europe could go ‘Mega' by 2027

Telegraph

15 hours ago

Poland's new president is a Trump-inspired nationalist.
The government in the Netherlands has just been felled by an anti-migrant firebrand.
Right-wing parties are already in government in Hungary and Italy, and in Berlin, the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition after it was endorsed by JD Vance and Elon Musk in the February elections.
As Europe begins a cycle of crucial elections over the next two and a half years, the radical insurgent Right has the momentum.
By 2027, there could be eight nationalist prime ministers in the 27-member-strong European Union, which has already swung to the Right.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's White House is determined to 'Make Europe Great Again'. Allies in the right places could prove very useful to Mr Trump, who accuses the EU of trying to 'screw' the US on trade and through the regulation of American technology firms.
If 2027 is the year Europe does indeed go 'Mega', there will be serious ramifications for EU policies on migration, Ukraine and net zero, as well as a push to assert national leadership over Brussels.
Experts believe this week's win in Poland and ructions in the Netherlands will bolster the 'Mega' wing in Europe with proof of concept.
'I don't believe in domino effects, but I do believe in a demonstration effect,' said Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
In other words, people in other countries are aware of and influenced by politics elsewhere.
'The biggest demonstration effect is coming not from other European countries, but from the US,' he said. 'The election of Donald Trump gives a legitimacy boost and a confidence boost to plenty of the far-Right parties across Europe and their electorates.'
Many of the parties had 'ever tighter links to the Maga movement' and 'practical support' to get better results, he said.
The Netherlands
Geert Wilders led his Party for Freedom (PVV) to the hard-Right's first-ever general election win in November 2023.
But the 'Dutch Trump' was forced to sacrifice his dream of being prime minister in coalition talks after his shock victory on a platform of 'zero asylum'.
This time, he would become prime minister, he told reporters in The Hague, as he vowed to once again defeat the establishment conservative and Left-wing parties in October.
The shock-headed populist may struggle to repeat the trick, or to find willing coalition partners, after toppling the government for not backing his hardline migration plans. Current polls have him with a narrow lead of one percentage point over the Left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA.
But Mr Wilders was enjoying highs of 50 per cent before forming a coalition government that struggled to implement its strictest ever asylum policy.
He is banking on those numbers recovering, and White House officials have already made clear he has Mr Trump's backing.
With enough vote share, he could form a new conservative coalition with the pro-business VVD, provided it also posts strong results.
Tellingly, its leader has not yet ruled out a second alliance with Mr Wilders.
Poland
Mr Trump hosted Karol Nawrocki at the White House before the Law and Justice-backed former historian won a knife-edge victory on June 1. The role of president is largely ceremonial in Poland, but it comes armed with the power of veto over new legislation.
Law and Justice (PiS) won the popular vote (35.4 per cent), but fell short of a majority at the last general election in Poland. Donald Tusk, who won 30.7 per cent of the vote, cobbled together a large and unwieldy centrist coalition to take power.
Since then, prime minister Tusk has sought to steer Poland back to the European mainstream.
His reforms, including the liberalisation of some of Europe's strictest abortion laws, are set to be frustrated by Mr Nawrocki's vetoes.
Mr Tusk has called for a vote of confidence on June 11 to shore up his restive coalition, which is trailing PiS in the polls.
Even if that passes, it looks very unlikely his government will survive to the end of its term in 2027, and while it is unclear who the PiS's candidate could be in the next general election, a hard-Right prime minister is not unlikely.
Czech Republic
Businessman turned politician Andrej Babis is leading in the surveys – consistently polling about 30 per cent – ahead of October's general election in the Czech Republic.
The last election saw him lose to a Conservative-Liberal coalition by just a handful of votes.
Babis's party, ANO, obtained 27.13 per cent of the vote, while Spolu, which leads the coalition of the current government, won 27.79 per cent of the vote.
If he scrapes together a few more votes, the populist will become prime minister for the second time.
During his first spell in office, he donned a Trump-style red baseball cap.
A Babis victory would mean that he, and potentially Mr Wilders, would join the highly influential European Council, which meets regularly in Brussels to give the EU institutions political direction.
At present, the hard-Right have Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban in the room, but their numbers could double by the end of the year to include Mr Babis and Mr Wilders.
Hungary (2026)
Mr Orban nailed his colours to Mr Trump's mast a long time ago and is a darling of American conservatives.
The EU's longest-serving prime minister is looking to win a fifth consecutive term in office in elections in 2026.
In 2022, his party obtained 54.13 per cent of the vote – the highest vote share obtained by any party in Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989.
His policies, such as laws insisting Hungary only legally recognises two genders, have drawn praise and emulation from Maga supporters.
But he has angered Western EU member states by opposing sanctions on the Kremlin and banning gay pride marches.
Mr Orban is currently the most vocal nationalist leader in calling for pan-European alliances of hard-Right parties to radically reform the EU.
His party is in a European Parliament alliance with the parties led by Mr Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Ms Meloni's coalition partner Matteo Salvini, and Spain's Vox.
Sweden (2026)
Prime minister Ulf Kristersson's coalition is propped up by the hard-Right Sweden Democrats, which remains formally outside of government despite coming second in a 2022 election dominated by fears over immigration and crime.
The far-Right nearly doubled their vote share between 2014 and 2022, from 12.86 per cent to 20.54 per cent, which is largely down to the Sweden Democrats.
The Sweden Democrats have exerted considerable influence over the government and its agenda.
The question is whether voters will give Jimmie Akesson enough of a mandate to finally bust the taboo that has so far kept a party partially founded by Nazi sympathisers from being formally in government.
Italy (2027)
Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a genuine stateswoman since she took power in 2022, and experts believe her example of government has made the hard-Right in Europe more credible.
She has kept her Right-wing coalition together, which is no easy task in Italy.
She positioned herself as a mediator between the EU and Mr Trump while successfully spearheading a drive to get Brussels' tacit backing for offshore migrant detention camps.
Thanks to her, the Italian hard-Right's vote share has risen from just 1.97 per cent in 2013 to 27.2 per cent in 2022, and she will be optimistic of another victory in 2027's general election.
She has much in common politically with Mr Orban, but they are divided over Ukraine, which has split the European hard-Right.
She shares a European political party with Poland's Law and Justice, which is hawkish on Russia and will be contesting the general election in 2027 if Mr Tusk's vote of confidence passes next week.
Spain (2027)
Spain's conservatives won the popular vote – 33.1 per cent – in the last general election, but fell short of a majority.
Their potential coalition allies, Vox, the far-Right and Trump allied nationalists, underperformed, obtaining just 12.4 per cent of the vote.
That opened the door for socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to assemble an extremely broad coalition of the centre-Left, communists and Catalan and Basque separatists.
Polarised Spain's culture wars have only got worse in the years since the 2023 election and the start of the divisive Mr Sanchez's second term.
The pardoning of Catalan separatists and political discussions with former terrorists, as well as corruption allegations about his wife and allies, could cost him in 2027.
France (2027)
Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections, effectively daring the French to hand over power to the hard-Right, after Marine Le Pen's National Rally defeated him in the European Parliament elections last summer.
National Rally did not get a majority, after a group of different parties united to keep out the hard-Right.
But Mr Macron's party lost its majority in the National Assembly and has been a lame duck domestically ever since.
Head of the largest single party in France, Ms Le Pen is well positioned for presidential elections in 2027, in which Mr Macron cannot stand.
But Ms Le Pen was banned from running for the presidency in March after being found guilty of embezzlement.
It drew immediate comparisons to the 'lawfare' waged on Mr Trump, who offered his support.
She is appealing, but her protege Jordan Bardella will run in her stead if necessary.
Polls are showing that either could win against Gabriel Attal, a contender to succeed Mr Macron as candidate – if they were to run. Ms Le Pen would beat him 53 per cent to 47 per cent, Bardella by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
The question is whether the 'front republican' will once again emerge in the second round of the presidential elections to keep the National Rally from power.
Or, as it did this week in Poland, fall just short.
The election of a Eurosceptic leader to the presidency of France, the EU's most influential member state alongside Germany, would be a political earthquake that would shake Brussels to its core.
Why now?
Andre Krouwel, who teaches political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said the populist parties in Europe were comparing notes as they plotted their routes to power.
He said: 'They use the success and failure of other parties to learn from and use in campaigns. You see a lot of copying of strategies, such as victim playing or attacking so-called elites.'
In general, traditional parties had an advantage in their experience and ability to govern, he added.
Mr Wilders' decision to pull the plug on his coalition was an example that proved populists were 'good at saying things, not doing them.'
The parties were also 'super-unstable' and given to infighting.
For Prof Krouwel, the rise of the populist Right across Europe has its roots in economic anxiety as well as fears over immigration.
'There was always an expectation that your children will do better than you. You can't say that now,' he said, adding that Dutch children were staying home far longer because they can't afford to move out.
'We are all becoming southern Europe and that is an explanation for the populist surge,' he said.
Maria Skora, visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, said there were certain broad trends common to many EU countries where the hard Right was on the rise.
There have been 15 years of difficulties, including the eurozone and migrant crises. The pandemic was followed by the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis.
That all contributed to the sense that traditional parties were not delivering. Meanwhile, parties like the AfD were extremely effective at using social media and digital campaigning.
'It's a digital revolution, as big a revolution as you know, radio back in the day,' Ms Skora said. 'I think this feeds into this tribalism and polarisation, which we see in more countries.'