What is the assessment for the 5 European countries in which the extreme right governs?

The ballot boxes have ruled out the possibility of a Jordan Bardella at Matignon. But the 10 million voters of the National Rally, just like the results of the European elections, confirm the rise of the extreme right. In France, Belgium, Hungary, Italy and Austria, the most right-wing parties on the political spectrum came out on top in the European elections. Result: the conservative, Eurosceptic and nationalist groups – CRE and ID – saw their number of deputies in the Parliament in Brussels increase from 118 to 131. Whether they govern alone, as in Hungary, at the head of a coalition as in Italy, or as a supporting force in a government as in Finland, Slovakia and now the Netherlands, how do these parties implement their programs? Do they make concessions? Le Pèlerin examines the governance of this new extreme right that is all the rage on the Old Continent. And which, whatever the country, has one thing in common: having won the battle of ideas by imposing its themes in the news. A victory strengthened, once in power, by the control of the public media.

1. Italy: Reform to last

At the head of a coalition of the right and the far right since 2022, Georgia Meloni places the fight against immigration at the heart of her project. The leader of Fratelli d’Italia, a party heir to Mussolini’s thinking, has however failed to reduce illegal immigration: nearly 158,000 migrants landed on Italian shores in 2023, a record. Since then, agreements with non-European countries have multiplied. Italy pays Tunisia financial compensation so that it prevents the departure of migrants from its coasts. The same with Egypt. In Albania, detention centers, financed by Rome, house refugees rescued in Italian waters, while their asylum applications are examined.

Under pressure from Italian employers, Georgia Meloni has also had to change her approach to economic immigration. “With the fastest ageing population in Europe and a fertility rate of 1.2 children per woman, Italy’s demographic decline is evident. There is a labour crisis in the factories of the EU’s second industrial power, as well as in agriculture,” says Gilles Gressani, president of the Geopolitical Studies Group. Italy will thus grant 450,000 residence permits to foreign workers by 2025.

On the level of institutions and values, however, Georgia Meloni remains on the offensive. On the grounds of combating governmental instability, she calls for a revision of the constitution, “the mother of all reforms”, she says. The election of the Prime Minister would be by direct universal suffrage for a period of five years, and would be held at the same time as the legislative elections, which would ensure the victorious party an absolute majority in Parliament. “The text is controversial in the country, because it would weaken the role of the President of the Republic and is worrying because of the concentration of powers that it would generate”, says Marc Lazar, a sociologist and historian specializing in Italian politics.

Georgia Meloni has also undertaken to “change the country’s narrative,” as she puts it, by appointing figures close to her party to head cultural institutions and by influencing the editorial line of the Italian public broadcasting giant, RAI. “Her stated goal is to end the cultural hegemony of the left in Italy,” summarizes Emma Bonutti d’Agostini, a researcher on the ideology of the extreme right in the media spheres.

2. Slovakia, Hungary: Freedoms under threat

Robert Fico has been chairing a coalition involving his populist National Party, the Social Democrats and the far-right figure Andrej Danko of the Slovak National Party since 2023. In 2018, already in his second term, he was forced to resign in the face of pressure from the street following the assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, who was investigating corruption within his government.

The dismissals in the police, justice system and the media are multiplying in an atmosphere of general purge. A law, passed a few days ago, drastically limits the right to demonstrate in the country. The high point of this major clean-up: the reform of Slovak radio and television. From now on, the board of directors is appointed by the far-right Minister for Culture, Martina Simkovicova, and by the parliament, controlled by the government of Robert Fico. The European Broadcasting Union describes this reform as “a thinly veiled attempt to transform the Slovak public broadcasting service into a state-controlled media”. “Having returned to power, Robert Fico is capturing key institutions to maintain himself at the head of the country”, believes Romain Le Quiniou, director of the think tank Euro Créative. A scenario similar to that observed in his Hungarian neighbor Viktor Orban, champion of “illiberal democracy”. In power for fourteen years, he has increased the number of measures to control the media, universities, judicial institutions and NGOs. According to Romain Le Quiniou, “if Hungary were a candidate for entry into the EU today, its membership would be refused, because it does not respect the Copenhagen criteria, established in 1993 to ensure respect for democracy, minorities and the rule of law.”

3. Netherlands: Immigration, reserved file

More than six months after Geert Wilders’ legislative victory, his coalition with the liberals and the centre-right has finally agreed on the name of Dick Schoof, former head of Dutch intelligence, to become Prime Minister. While Geert Wilders’ Islamophobic and Euro-sceptic positions were considered extreme by his allies for them to agree to see him lead the government, the latter intends to put all his weight behind “the strictest asylum admission policy ever seen”, he declares. In its programme, the Dutch government provides for “an exemption clause from the European asylum and migration policy (which) will be submitted to the European Commission as soon as possible”.

The Netherlands, a founding member of the European Union, therefore intends to dissociate itself from the rest of the twenty-seven at a time when all have just signed the new pact on immigration and asylum providing for solidarity mechanisms in the distribution of asylum seekers.