Germany, Netherlands and Serbia… These countries where the extreme right is taking hold

Every day, the correspondents’ club describes how the same news story is illustrated in several countries. This Tuesday, the correspondents’ club is going to Europe, to three countries where the far right is gaining ground: the Netherlands, Germany and Serbia.

Is the far right taking hold in Europe? In the Netherlands, negotiations for a coalition government are taking place with the far right, which emerged victorious in the last legislative elections on November 22. In Germany, the far right won its first town hall on Sunday December 17 in a “medium-sized” town, in Pirna, 40,000 inhabitants, in the Saxony region, in the east of the country. And in Serbia, in the Balkans, the SNS, close to Vladimir Putin, in power since 2012, has apparently just won the legislative elections on Sunday.

Netherlands: Geert Wilders winner of legislative elections

After the victory of the far right in the legislative elections, negotiations to form a coalition government of the right and the far right are in full swing. And we do not know until when the three right and center-right parties will remain at the negotiating table with Geert Wilders’ far-right party, the Party for Freedom, which has long dragged down the image of ‘a formation that is too rigid and not very open to the arguments of other parties.

But since his victory in the legislative elections, Geert Wilders has visibly attempted a last-minute de-demonization operation in order to show the other parties and the Dutch that they have nothing to fear, with him in charge. In Parliament, he notably addresses far fewer insults to other parties. In this context, in the Netherlands, for several weeks, there has been a lot of talk, in a humorous tone, no longer about Geert Wilders but about “Geert Milders”, in French “Geert Softer”.

This new image absolutely does not go down with his opponents, particularly on the left. His social democratic competitor, former European Commissioner for Climate Action, Frans Timmermans, recently compared Geert Wilders to the character of Bruce, the shark from the Disney animated film Nemo. Bruce who at one point decides to become a vegetarian but whose true nature takes over at the simple smell of blood.

Germany: AFD at 20% in the polls

The AFD, the far-right party, continues to gain ground. The last example is located in Pirna. A few months earlier, the AFD also won its first regional election in Thuringia, before winning its first mandate as mayor in a small town of 9,000 inhabitants. Each time, these successes were obtained in former regions of East Germany, where the AFD is in the lead with 32% of voting intentions.

On the national level, the far right is also attractive, credited with a little more than 20% in opinion polls, the formation is the second political force, behind the conservatives of the CDU but ahead of the three parties of the coalition in power. She recorded very good results during the October elections in Hesse and Bavaria.

However, the AFD has experienced turbulence in recent weeks; the intelligence services have placed it under reinforced surveillance in three regions. But these measures seem to have no effect on the party’s popularity. The AFD is taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of part of the public with the government. When the coalition came to power in the fall of 2021, the AFD was at 10%. She has now doubled her score, thanks to her simple answers to the country’s problems: border closures and expulsions to resolve the refugee crisis. But also with the end of sanctions against Russia to import cheap gas and ensure energy supplies.

The AFD is also seeking to buy its way and has notably distanced itself from ultra-right circles. Its leaders now have their eyes turned towards the elections planned for next year in its strongholds, three regions in the East, where the AFD is in the lead.

Serbia: Aleksandar Vucic quietly criticizes the EU

Serbia is today controlled by the SNS, the party of the country’s strong man: Aleksandar Vucic. This politician is a former ultranationalist, who at the time of the Yugoslav wars and the Srebrenica massacre called for the killing of 100 Muslims for every one Serb, then, in the 2000s, defended war criminals, such as Ratko Mladic . Vucic had also capitalized, and he still does, on the refusal of the loss of Kosovo and the injustice caused to the Serbs.

But since coming to power in 2012 he has completely changed his rhetoric. He says he is pro-European and open to dialogue with Kosovo. He also removed any aggression from his speech. On the other hand, he cultivates good relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and criticizes the European Union quietly. As a result, support for the European idea is increasingly weak in Serbia.

It must be understood that the extreme right markers in Serbia are not linked to immigration, because it is a marginal phenomenon. Migrants in Serbia want only one thing: to cross the border of the European Union as quickly as possible. What characterizes the far right in the country is the strong link with Putin’s Russia, the rejection of NATO, accused of having wrested Kosovo from Serbia following the bombings of 1999, and a vision of the European Union that is too liberal, opposed to either distant traditional Serbian values, based on patriarchy and on the idea that Serbia has the vocation to control, at least in part, neighboring countries, due to the Serbian minorities which live there.