As extremists win more votes across Europe, forming moderate and effective governments is getting harder
The Economist || September 4, 2024
Photograph: DPA
It would be comforting to play down the significance of the votes in two German states on September 1st, when the hard-right Alternative for Germany (afd) party lost in Saxony by a whisker and scored a nine-point lead over its nearest rival in Thuringia. Yes, this victory is the first the hard right has won in a state election in Germany since the second world war. And yes, its leader in Thuringia is a nasty piece of work with two criminal convictions for using a slogan popularised by the Nazi brownshirts and banned under German law. But Thuringia is home to less than 3% of Germans. It is about as representative as Wyoming in America, where Donald Trump took 68% of the votes in 2016, or Clacton in Britain, which elected Reform uk’s leader, Nigel Farage, in July.
Yet what happens in Thuringia does not stay there. Polls show support for the afd is running at 16-17% nationally, with the anti-migrant Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (bsw) at 8%, and another radical anti-capitalist party on 3%. Almost a third of Germans favour extreme parties.
Germany is hardly alone. In France Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally and its allies hold 25% of parliamentary seats, with another 13% for the radical-left Unsubmissive France party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Or look at Italy, where the hard-right parties the Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, and the League, led by Matteo Salvini, together took 35% of the vote in the election in 2022. Austria heads to the polls this month with the hard-right Freedom Party in the lead, on about 27%. Hungary is ruled by an ultra-nationalist who believes in antisemitic and homophobic conspiracy theories.
Rising support for extremists is concerning in its own right. But it has a pernicious knock-on effect. In order to form moderate governments that exclude extremists, the diminished mainstream parties are being forced to construct ever more unwieldy coalitions that often prove bad at governing. In a vicious cycle, disappointment further fuels support for the anti-establishment parties. Germany’s national government, a hapless three-party coalition, is a case in point and next year’s federal elections may be followed by more tortuous coalition negotiations. It may take months to form state governments in Thuringia and Saxony. The same dynamic explains why it took two months after France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, held a snap parliamentary election, for him to name a prime minister, and it is doubtful that his new government will survive for long.
How, then, to handle the extremes? The answer depends on just how nasty they are. In some cases the problem is surmountable. Take Italy. Ms Meloni’s party has its roots in neo-fascism, but she has been intelligent enough to moderate its policies to the extent that few could plausibly claim that her government is unacceptable in a liberal state. The lure of power is a strong incentive to evolve. In France Ms Le Pen is trying to tack towards the responsible centre. So far, no other party will formally deal with the National Rally, but in the future, perhaps under another leader, that may change. Even now, business folk in France are more worried by Mr Mélenchon’s ruinous policies than by Ms Le Pen.
Another model is Sweden, where the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats support a minority centre-right government, and have moderated their conduct in return for influence. In the Netherlands the right-wing firebrand, Geert Wilders, has been tied down inside a four-party coalition led by a technocrat; he had to drop his most incendiary proposals, such as banning the Koran. Bringing extremists in from the cold is no guarantee that they will be tamed, however. It did not work with Austria’s Freedom Party, despite two spells in office.
Germany is the toughest nut to crack. Deals with the leftist bsw may be deemed necessary, though risky. But the afd has a long way to go before the cordon sanitaire that keeps it out of office should be breached. It is not just individuals like the Thuringian leader who are the problem; there and in Saxony, the state-level afd outfits are designated by Germany’s intelligence service as “proven” extremists, as is the party’s national youth arm. Treating the afd like pariahs reinforces its appeal among the discontented; but the alternative is worse.
The best way to grapple with the extremists is to deal with the grievances that boost their popularity. Dismissing the concerns of a third or more of the electorate is not just anti-democratic, it is anti-pragmatic. Loading the costs of the energy transition onto consumers evokes fury: central governments need to pick up more of the tab. Solving local irritants, such as a lack of teachers, can soothe voters’ general discontent. The most intractable problem, however, is immigration. Liberals shy away from getting tough. Yet the perception that migration is out of control fuels the hard right more than anything else. Reinforcing Europe’s external borders, deporting failed asylum-seekers and integrating those who stay are all difficult. But until governments look as though they are trying harder, the rise of the right will continue, and the centre will go on evaporating.
© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2024