{"id":1541840,"date":"2025-06-15T11:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T15:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1541840"},"modified":"2025-06-15T11:35:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T15:35:00","slug":"europes-populist-parties-keeps-gaining-ground-but-cannot-get-into-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/europes-populist-parties-keeps-gaining-ground-but-cannot-get-into-power\/1541840\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe’s Populist Parties Keeps Gaining Ground, But Cannot Get Into Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe’s Populist Parties Keeps Gaining Ground, But Cannot Get Into Power<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

Across the European continent, despite gaining considerable proportions of the vote, populist parties are increasingly being frozen out of governing in coalitions by political opponents who regard them as extremist.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Police block the road access to an AfD campaign meeting during a demostration under the motto “Block Alice Weidel,” co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfrurt am Main, western Germany, on Feb. 1, 2025. Kirill Kudryavtsev \/ AFP<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Proponents of the tactic known as a \u201ccordon sanitaire\u201d or \u201cfirewall\u201d say it\u2019s not an attack on democracy but a defense of it. But one war expert said the tactic will only arouse anger in voters and that \u201cthere is no potential for peaceful political change.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coalitions are part and parcel of political life in many European countries.<\/p>\n

But the cordon sanitaire, a measure normally directed at keeping out fringe outliers, is now being used to keep out parties that are gaining majority-level support.<\/p>\n

Such parties include the Alternative for Germany, France\u2019s National Rally, Austria\u2019s Freedom Party, Spain\u2019s Vox, and the Netherlands\u2019 Party for Freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They all deny being \u201cfar-right\u201d as they are often dubbed by media, opponents, or academics, but their political opponents regard them as beyond the pale and have formed coalitions on the promise of shutting them out of governance.<\/p>\n

AfD<\/h2>\n

The AfD, an anti-mass immigration party, which came second<\/a> in Germany\u2019s national parliamentary elections, earning nearly 21 percent of the vote, was recently denied<\/a> allotted committee chairmanships and vice-chairmanships.<\/p>\n

The party is locked in a legal battle<\/a> with the state to avoid being branded an \u201cextremist\u201d right-wing movement by Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency.<\/p>\n

AfD\u2019s policies include strong support for traditional marriage between a man and woman <\/strong>and the nuclear family, the preservation of national independence<\/strong> in the face of the European Union\u2019s increasing power, the preservation of German culture amid \u201cEuropean integration\u201d and Islamization, and border security, including the expulsion of illegal immigrants.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But this doesn\u2019t seem to have dented the party\u2019s popularity in the polls. According to a recent INSA<\/a> survey, the AfD is at 24.5 percent, hot on the heels of the CDU at 26 percent.<\/p>\n

A similar pattern is being seen in other countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early in June<\/a>, the Dutch government collapsed after Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders said his party would pull out of the governing coalition.<\/p>\n

Wilders asked coalition partners to sign up to a plan to cut illegal immigration, which included using the army to protect Dutch borders, rejecting all illegal immigrants, sending Syrian refugees back to their country, and closing asylum shelters.<\/p>\n

At the time, he said that if the country\u2019s immigration policy was not strengthened, the PVV would be \u201cout of the Cabinet.\u201d He followed through on the threat.<\/p>\n

In Austria, conservatives, Social Democrats, and liberals formed a coalition in March to block the anti-immigration and euro-skeptic Freedom Party from taking power<\/strong>, even after it won an electoral victory with 29 percent<\/a> of the vote last September.<\/p>\n

The party was founded in 1956 by Anton Reinthaller, a former SS officer and member of the Reichstag.<\/p>\n

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron called a surprise snap<\/a> election on June 9, following his centrist Renaissance party\u2019s poor performance in European Parliament elections when the populist and nationalist party National Rally (RN) performed very strongly.<\/p>\n

But RN has increased its voter share ahead of the French presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held in or around April 2027, and is currently polling at 35 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a snap national election<\/a> after his party was beaten in local government polls by the conservative People\u2019s Party (PP) and the nationalist Vox.<\/p>\n

Sanchez managed to retain power but only after months of wrangling with regional parties and a controversial power deal<\/a> with Catalan separatists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vox, founded in 2013, is now the third-largest force in the Spanish Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u2018We Were Excluded\u2019<\/h2>\n

Explaining the AfD situation in Germany, Richard Schenk, research fellow at MCC Brussels, told The Epoch Times that freezing out the AfD will have \u201ccertain consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfD can now just exactly claim: \u2018We were excluded from the decisions that led to this chaos. You excluded us. We wanted to participate, to put forward proposals, to take responsibility, but you excluded us. So we really do not have to do anything with the mess that\u2019s currently going on,’\u201d said Schenk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, in the long run, making the AfD more powerful than any committee chairmanships<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Efforts in the European Parliament have also seen the Greens and liberal Renew Europe groups join forces with the pro-European EPP (European People\u2019s Party) to enforce the cordon sanitaire.<\/p>\n

Members of Patriots for Europe, which includes the parties of France\u2019s Marine Le Pen and Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n and the ESN (Europe of Sovereign Nations), in which the AfD plays a leading role, were sidelined last year without gaining any senior committee posts, according to The Parliament<\/a> magazine.<\/p>\n

\u2018Militant Democracy\u2019<\/h2>\n

Some analysts say the cordon sanitaire is rooted in democracy\u2019s built-in safeguards.<\/p>\n

The think tank German Marshall Fund<\/a> said in a report last year that it believes mainstreaming such parties will further legitimize \u201cthe far right and normalize previously marginal or unacceptable policy positions, including ones contrary to European values.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Ucko, nonresident senior fellow at the Global and National Security Institute (GNSI) at the University of South Florida, told The Epoch Times that it is a long-running tradition \u201cto set out certain rules of the game\u201d within democratic institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t follow [the rules], you don\u2019t get to play the game,<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing with the various efforts, sometimes called \u2018militant democracy,\u2019 is simply an attempt by the state, albeit through the serving government, to ensure that the constitutional rules of democracy are being followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the targeted party could be \u201cleft wing or right wing,\u201d but if they abrogate the rules of the game, then they \u201cbreak the constitutional entry requirement to be a democratic contender. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion of shutting a party out or sanctioning a party for values or speech or for actions that go against a constitutional setup of that democratic system is neither unprecedented nor, I think, inherently wrong<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018No Potential for Peaceful Political Change\u2019<\/h2>\n

Others say that such a high-stakes tactic could encourage a drift toward confrontation.<\/p>\n

David Betz, professor of war in the modern world in the department of war studies at King\u2019s College London, has discussed in his studies that forces are driving the West toward civil war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say it leads; I’d say it is part of the overall picture<\/strong>,\u201d he told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

He said that governments are \u201cclosing off other political voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not doing natural politics anymore, and all it does is it convinces people that the system itself is invidious, and that there is no potential for peaceful political change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betz has noted in his work<\/a> that approximately 75 percent of post-Cold War civil conflicts have been fought by ethnic factions, and that immigration is a central bone of contention for the populist parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two things are deeply interrelated<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are movements which are almost completely animated by people\u2019s sense of frustrated nationalism, essentially frustrated patriotism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are movements which are animated by a perception of being displaced in their own lands, but also at the same time of having been betrayed by their own political elite. So you have both an ethnic conflict and a conservative revolt or a nationalist revolt at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demetrius Floudas, a former policy and geopolitical adviser to cabinet-level decision-makers for several governments, including the British Foreign Office<\/a>, warned of a potential backlash.<\/p>\n

Floudas told The Epoch Times by email that \u201chistorically, political exclusion has often led to increased radicalisation and occasionally to a surge in popularity for the excluded parties. Besides, such tactics may backfire by eroding public trust in democratic systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guy Birchall contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 06\/15\/2025 – 07:35<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/europes-populist-parties-keeps-gaining-ground-cannot-get-power<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe’s Populist Parties Keeps Gaining Ground, But Cannot Get Into Power Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Across the European continent,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1541841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6t6o","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/image_922822229_0-mbO9N0.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1541841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}