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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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anti-European populist movements that pose a
threat to the existence of the EU and the liberal
democratic system based on the rule of law as a
whole. Worst case scenarios of populist success
at the polls have failed to materialise in the EU’s
largest states with the exception of Italy, where
the victory of the Five Star Movement and the
spectacular results of the League (formerly the
Northern League) have given rise to the omi-
nous possibility of a coalition government by
two parties known for their frequent anti-Euro-
pean statements. There is no motive to be opti-
mistic about the situation elsewhere either.
Geert Wilder’s Freedom Party came in second in
the 2017 Dutch general elections with 13.1 %
of the vote, while the leader of the far-right
National Front, Marine Le Pen, captured 33.9 %
of the votes in a runoff election against
Emmanuel Macron in last May’s French presi-
dential elections. The extremist party Alternative
for Germany, which won over five million votes
(12.64 % of the total) in federal elections held
in Germany in September, will be the main op-
position party in the Bundestag. Populist and
extreme right-wing parties such as the Danish
People’s Party, upon whose support the current
ruling coalition government in Denmark de-
pends, and ANEL, which has become Syriza’s
ruling coalition partner in Greece, have gained
significant ground in other Member States as
well. More often than not, the existence and
relative success of such movements have a per-
verse influence on the discourses of right-wing,
centre-right and even more liberal parties,
whose rush to adopt of extremist positions in a
bid to appeal to voters has led to an across-the-
board erosion of the freedom of expression and
other civil rights. Democracy is fragile and must
be protected on a day-to-day basis. The traction
these movements are gaining is leading to a ba-
nalisation of xenophobia and ultranationalism,
both of which are steadily seeping into the
mainstream of European politics and becoming
more and more publicly acceptable.
The case of Austria
Austria provides a case study of the extent to
which extremist ideas have come to be consid-
ered normal and acceptable in Europe. The
Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) won the Austrian
general elections of October 2017 with 31.5 %
of the popular vote, edging out both the Social
Party, which received 26.9 %, and the far-right
Freedom Party (FPÖ), which won a slightly lower
26 %. In December, Sebastian Kurz, the young
leader of the ÖVP, formed a coalition govern-
ment with FPÖ, whose leader Heinz-Christian
Strache now serves as vice-chancellor and also
heads up the country’s Ministry of Civil Service
and Sports. The openly xenophobic and
Eurosceptic FPÖ currently controls all matters
related to security (defence, interior and foreign
affairs), with the exception of the bulk of the
European agenda. The central platform of the
coalition’s programme and an issue that the FPÖ
has deftly exploited is the perceived need to halt
irregular migration, a topic of great concern in
Austria given the country’s proximity to the
Balkan migration route.
Figures associated with the right-wing
Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom
such as Le Pen, Wilders and the Czech politician
Tomio Okamura rushed to congratulate the FPÖ
on its success. The reactions of Jean-Claude
Juncker and Angela Merkel have been more
muted, both stating they would judge the
Austrian government “on its actions”. A com-
parison of this response to the one that fol-
lowed the FPÖ’s first entry into the Austrian
government in 2000, which prompted 14