Can Nationalists Work Together? Europe’s About to Find Out
Hard-liners are poised for gains in coming elections, but may not be organized enough to exploit their advantage.
(From left) Olli Kotro, a candidate for the Finns Party; Jörg Meuthen, co-leader of Germany’s AfD party; Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini; and Anders Vistisen, a candidate for the Danish People’s Party, announce an alliance of nationalist parties in Milan on April 8.
Photographer: Federico Bernini/Bloomberg
Angelo Ciocca of Italy’s League party is in the European Parliament’s plenary chamber in Strasbourg, France, railing against the European Union’s “crazy, criminal project” to let Muslim Turkey in. Never mind that, minutes earlier, the body called for suspending Turkey’s membership talks, which anyway have been stalled for a decade.
Welcome to what some have called the YouTube parliament, where populist members such as Ciocca make speeches aimed more at energizing voters back home than shaping EU legislation. The closer the May 23-26 EU-wide elections get, the more inflamed their speeches are. The League and other nationalist parties expect big gains, winning as many as one-third of seats. Steve Bannon, former strategist for U.S. President Donald Trump who’s advised many in Europe’s insurgent right, has predicted May’s elections will be a political “earthquake.” Hyperbole notwithstanding, the 60-year-old bloc is about to see a significant change.