EU braced for massive shift to Right with populist anti-migrant parties set for huge gains in key European elections
As Europe heads to the polls in May, it's thought the alliance between populist parties could cause a surge in support for the right.
It's said new alliances between insurgents in Italy, Poland, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany could shift the direction of European politics.
Support for nationalist populist parties across the European Union has grown within the last four years since 2015, it's reported.
And it's predicted that in the three-day elections from May 23 – in which European member states are eligible to vote for parliament's 701 MEPs – Europe will see a massive shift to the right.
According to The Times, a political expert in the UK has warned the nationalist populist parties appear to be breaking through in EU states previously considered immune to the movement.
Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent Matthew Goodwin predicts that national populists will "poll strongly" in the May elections, "enjoying their strongest set of European parliament elections to date".
In his new book, National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy he said: "I will be watching parties like the League in Italy, Alternative for Germany, Sweden Democrats, the populists in France and the new Vox in Spain.
"It seems that national populists are beginning to break through in states that were once thought to be immune to this force, like Spain and Sweden, as well as those where it has long been established, like Austria and France."
Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the anti-immigrant League Matteo Salvini has said the the new political movement of right wing and social conservatives will replace the former Paris-Berlin axis dominating the EU.
Reportedly heralding a "new European spring", Mr Salvini said: "I’d like to create a pact, an alliance for everyone who wants to save Europe, the more of us, the better… The Franco-German axis may be replaced."
Mr Salvini said the elections would be "a referendum between the Europe of the elites, banks, finance, immigration and precarious work" and "the Europe of people and labour."
"I don’t have a crystal ball but the goal is to become the second largest movement, maybe the first in the next European parliament elections," he said.
The new alliances and populist backlash against immigration following the refugee crisis has sparked a "political earthquake" in the centrist conservative European People's Party.
Growth of Far Right parties in Europe since 2015
Spain: Vox – 11 per cent
France: Front National – 13 per cent
Italy: The League – 17.4 per cent
Switzerland: Swiss People's Party – 29 per cent
Austria: Freedom Party – 26 per cent
Hungary: Jobbik – 19 per cent
Slovakia: Our Slovakia – 8 per cent
Czech Republic: Freedom and Direct Democracy – 11 per cent
Germany: Alternative for Germany – 12.6 per cent
Netherlands: Freedom Party – 13 per cent
Denmark: Danish People's Party – 21 per cent
Sweden: Sweden Democrats – 17.6 per cent
Finland: The Finns – 18 per cent
Bulgaria: United Patriots – 9 per cent
Greece: Golden Dawn – 7 per cent
Cyrus: ELAM – 3.7 per cent
Hungary's nationalist prime minister and member of the EPP Viktor Orban has said there will be a pull to the right in the alliance and that their goal is that "opponents of immigration become a majority in the institutions of the EU".
Austria's People's Party, as well as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary rejected a United Nations migration pact last year, shattering EU unity on migration.
Across Europe, the far-right Alternative for Germany is polling neck and neck with the German Social Democrats and in France, Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally – formerly the National Front – is winning opinion polls over President Emmanuel Macron.
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