With the addition of Vox in the Parliament of andalusia, Spain has ceased to be a rarity in Europe. The vanagloriada except Spanish has ceased to exist and Spain has now joined the extensive list of european countries in which the populism of the extreme right have grown in assertiveness and support of the voters. The hot tweet of congratulations to Marine Le Pen, the flagship of the nationalist forces, certified by written entry in the great family of the extreme right in europe. In the club of the irreducible there are only Portugal and Ireland.
But the family ultra europe is very heterogeneous and the extremist groups are a fit politician is very different in each country. While in countries like Germany or France, the rejection of the traditional parties to any pact with the populists has been, up until now steadfast, in others such as Austria or Finland, the extremists live in the Government with a right uninhibited.
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If the people’s Party or Citizens decide to make a pact with Vox, “it would be no novelty in the european context, where there is a huge variety on how they relate to this type of games,” explains Sofia Vasilopoulou, expert in populism of the University of York. “But what is certain is that research has shown that allying with the populist strategy is short-sighted, that in the long run does not benefit the traditional parties. On the one hand helps to legitimise the ideas of the extreme right, and on the other, the parties who cooperate with them will end up losing votes, because once the ideas populists have expanded among the electorate, the voters elect the party that represents them with greater purity,” he adds Vasilopoulou.
In Germany, the extreme right-wing Alternative for Germany (Afd) entered into force -92 deputies, 12.9% of the votes – for the first time last year in the Bundestag. A country that is believed to be vaccinated by history, is seen now forced to face on a daily basis to their ghosts. And until now, the traditional parties, that is to say, all of the parliamentary spectrum, have chosen to do so while maintaining a tight cordon sanitaire around the ultra training. That is to say, no party makes or forms the Government with Afd. And that, in spite of the difficulties of arithmetic to post-election that made Berlin will need six months of intense negotiations to end forming a Government, unwanted, but considered the only alternative, by the partners of the grand coalition. This week, the CDU chooses the successor of Merkel as head of the party and none of the three candidates in the fray has dared to propose any kind of collaboration with the extremists.
The modernization slope of Vox
With the family of ultra-nationalist european Vox shares the spirit of revenge and counter-revolution against what they consider political correctness, that baby of consensus-the legacy of may ‘ 68: multiculturalism, feminism, a model of traditional family and an idealization, nostalgic of a past that promise to return. The conflict Catalan, however, is a hallmark of difference, and the great engine of the party Spanish.
“they Are a young party which gives the impression that they are a pastiche of ideas from other populist in europe. Are anti-immigrant and antiislam, like most people and want to make Spain great again as Trump with America”, thinks the political scientist Sofia Vasilopoulou.
The war declared by Vox to feminism, separates them in part of the rest of the movements, especially in western Europe, “which have been modernized to try to attract the largest number of voters, including women. If Vox wants to expand your base, you will need to be modernized,” adds Vasilopoulou.
But on the one hand, it remains to be seen what will happen next year, when it held regional elections in the East of Germany, the bastion of the ultras and become with a certain probability in essential partner to govern, and the pressure on the CDU in certain länder to skyrocket. And for another, it is clear that the so-called cordon sanitaire imposed to Afd not only has not weakened, but in the opposition, from the victim-hood and to blow of scandal from the sidelines of the Parliament, have gained according to the polls. That is precisely one of the debates recurring in many european capitals that arise what is the best formula policy to curb extremist groups.
The cradle belgian
The dilemma with regard to the so-called cordon sanitaire, was born in Belgium, to prevent the accession to power of the extreme right. The covenant of the mainstream parties, still in force, was born in Flanders, after the so-called “black Sunday” of 1991, when the party is ultra-conservative and pro-independence Vlaams Blok or VB (now Vlaams Belang) scored an electoral success without precedent that triggered the alarms.
The quarantine imposed to VB grew out of the Green and was founded in the incompatibility of a large part of the electoral program of the Blok with the principles of the european Convention on Human Rights. This criterion has been maintained until today. And is the one that allows the political class belgian to establish a cordon sanitaire around VB, while accepting to other formations of the extreme right (as NVA) or the extreme left (PTB). Unlike VB, neither of those parties crosses the red line crossed by VB: to defend the discrimination between citizens on the basis of their birth.
The campus security policy belgium has faltered on several occasions, the most recent after the municipal elections of September. The pro-independence flemish of the NVA amagaron in some localities with the support of the candidates of the Vlaams Belang that they had won without a sufficient majority. But NVA fell back to the profile clearly xenophobic of the applicants.
In France, the conservatives went from an initial gathering and with the Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen in isolation from 1986, when the formation began their ascent in the National Assembly. The cord, less strict than the belgian, gave way to a hardening of the discourse conservative, who under the leadership of Nicolas Sarkozy (first, as minister of the Interior, and then, as president of the Repúlica) tried and managed to subtract support for the National Front.
The strategy came to his exhaustion with the financial crisis that ended the political career of Sarkozy. With the traditional right wing decimated, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the FN after the departure of his father, won the european Youwin Parliament elections in 2014 and stood at the gates of the Elysée palace in 2017, defeated in extremis by the movement created out of nothing by Emmanuel Macron. The FN has become the main one wasrza opposition and the conservatives (Les Republicains) have initiated a turn more to the right under the new leadership of Laurent Wauquiez.
the Netherlands is another of the european countries that governed the cord, and where the powerful PVV, led by Geert Wilders, do not find partners with whom to govern, despite having been in second position in the last general. Wilders, whose party, the PVV seems to have lost strength, is a pioneer of the movement, which managed to dilute the patina rancid that traditionally enveloped the parties ultras and that paved the way to its brother parties, identifying the struggle against islam as the great emergency european.
But neither in Belgium, nor in other countries, the cordon has prevented his ideas from getting to the rest of the formations. The NVA belgian for example, the main party of the country has taken a good part of the thesis of VB in relation to immigration. And in Germany, the conservative bavarian embrace also with little hesitation the thesis and especially the rhetoric of a populist able to make the agenda both within and outside of Government. Although the spread is even more obvious in countries where there has not been a cordon sanitaire, as Austria.
ultra-right Government
Austria is the opposite model, where the ultra-right FPÖ, governs with the conservative party of the foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz from a year ago. There, the wear and tear of a grand coalition that gave wings to an extreme-right xenophobic, that has been found in Kurz, representative of the wing more tough on immigration, a member of Government supported.
The case of an austrian is, precisely, irrefutable proof of the advance in Europe of the speech and the formations ultras. Because if in the year 2000, when the parties austrians forged a coalition similar with the late Jörg Haider to the head, half of Europe –institutions of the community included – were hands to the head, now, the acceptance of the new normal has not caused excessive fuss, or in other capitals, not in Brussels.
But if a country has gone ahead of the rest of Europe in the erosion of the two-party system of the post-war era and the emergence of extreme forces that has been to Italy. Democracy-the christian and the social-democracy almost broke down in the final stretch of the TWENTIETH century and left step to Silvio Berlusconi, an entrepreneur billionaire who has anticipated many of the traits of populism and the trumpismo of the current decade. But Italy is not already there. Has passed on to the next screen. And since the 31st of may, has a Government of coalition of the extremes, that binds to 5-Star, the group founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo, with the League, the former Northern League.
The League, led by Matteo Salvini, has displaced Marine Le Pen as a reference point of the far right european. Salvini, who even weighs be submitted in 2019 as the candidate of the extreme right to the presidency of the European Commission, has made the fight against illegal immigration in the y-axis of the media battle, with big payoffs election, according to the herald all the polls.
Under the slogan of “the italians, first” or “the revolution of common sense”, Salvini exploits all the springs of the propaganda common in movements of the xenophobic and populist, such as identifying the crime or the sale of drugs with immigration. But, unlike the RN of Le Pen (Rassanblement National) or Vox in Spain, Lega is the opposite of centralism and even defended its origins in the secession of the northern provinces of Italy, where he was born and grew up to become this year the third party with the most votes in the entire country.
The barriers also jumped a long time ago in Finland, where the ultra-conservative group were known as the True Finns form part from 2015 of a coalition government of the center-right. In Denmark, it has gone so far, but the current government (led by liberals) depends on the parliamentary support of the Danish people’s Party, listed also on the right end of the political spectrum. Only in Sweden, the forces of traditional are reluctant to count on the support of the extreme right, which has prevented up to now the formation of a Government after the elections of last September.
Both in Belgium and in the nordic countries, the parties of the extreme right put the emphasis on the politics and anti-immigrant, bordering on islamophobia in the last few years. In policies of gender equality or freedoms indiviudales, his ideology is much more aligned with the formations traditional, although in some cases they resist gay marriage or the recognition of certain reproductive techniques.
Homophobia and anti-semitism
In the countries of central and Eastern Europe, where the cordon sanitaire conspicuous by their absence, the cocktail of the extreme right-add all of the ingredients, from the xenophobia and homophobia to anti-semitism, euro-skepticism, or the intransigence of morality. And those traits dotting parties already entrenched in power and who are party to the european level of the political groups are traditional. The most prominent are the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán (member of the EPP) or the Polish Law and Justice party (belonging to the group of Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament).
In Bulgaria, the conservative government (PPE) counts among its members representatives of Patriots of America, an amalgam of formations of the extreme right. And even in countries with left governments, such as Romania, the current reactionary to be felt. Bucares held in October to a referendum to entrench constitutionally a ban on gay marriage. Without success.
