While centrist parties across Europe are suffering a series of defeats, Europe's far-right populists have managed to do the difficult thing within the European Parliament while managing to win on the national level, as well. Far-right populist parties, which were unable to form a group together, now have a group within the European Parliament. While they were unable to gather all far-right populist members of parliament, nevertheless they reached a serious number of seats. The president of this new group, which is shortly known as ID (Identity and Democracy) became Italian Marco Zanni from Lega. His aids are German Alternative for Germany (AfD) President Jörg Meuthen and Nicolas Bay, representing Marine Le Pen, from the French National Rally (RN).
This group has 73 members of the European Parliament in total and is formed of 28 Italian from Lega Nord, 22 from the French RN, 11 German, three Austrian from the Freedom Party of Austria, three Belgian from Vlaams Belang, two Finnish from the Finns Party, one Danish from the Denmark People's Party and one Estonian from the Conservative People's Party.
In short, within the European Union, the most renowned far-right populists known for "opposition to Europe," "xenophobia," "migrant enmity" and "overall opposition to EU values" came t
ogether. But let us reiterate that the far-right populists who declared their goal to become the "supreme group within the European Parliament" prior to the elections only managed to become the fifth group with their 73 out of 751 seats.
For example, Nigel Farage, the founder of the "Brexit Party" in Britain, did not join this group. In short, they were unable to gather all of the far-right members. While this situation makes us happy, we should not make a mistake and "underestimate" them. To this day they were unable to become this strong within the European Parliament. Their number, which was 36 in the last period, is now 73. They were successful.
Their first declaration proves to us that we need to take them seriously. AfD President Meuthen stated that they are going to be a group within the European Parliament that will say "no" in many matters and "will hinder the plans of many European Bureaucrats." Meuthen, who stated that the European Parliament "engages in nonsensical matters," also declared that they are against an embargo on Russia. We are not surprised by this. They became powerful like this thanks to Russia and Donald Trump's U.S. administration.
Russia and the U.S. are in complete cooperation when it comes to harming the stability of the EU through far-right populists. Their plan succeeded. French RN President Le Pen is pretentious enough to say that, "They have changed the chess rules of the EU." According to his judgment, she claims that there are around 200 members within the European Parliament that will back up their views. She is not without merit. When
we add up some far-right lawmakers within some center parties, and the far-left populists who are not so different from far-right populists when it comes to "Turkey, Turks and Muslims," reaching the number 200 is not very difficult.
In short, far-right populists and far-left populists that will support them from time to time within the European Parliament is a serious threat for European democracy. We are seeing this at a national level too.
In Germany Chancellor Angela Markel's Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) is now the second party according to the public opinion polls that were announced last Sunday. As the number one party, the Greens are now having dreams about the first Gree
n chancellor. However, it is not only the Greens that are dreaming. AfD members are also having "brown dreams." The Greens vote ratio is around 27 percent, the CDU's is 24 percent and the AfD's is 13 percent.
And the social democratic SPD? They are crawling on the ground with 11 percent vote ratio.
As it is seen in Europe, voters are distancing themselves from center parties that are giving false promises and gravitating towards the ones that promise more alternatives. As the Greens are rising as the party of the rich within Europe, the AfD is also getting stronger as the party of the systems "losers." In other word the typical "left-wing" voter is now awaiting help from far-right populist parties. We have experienced these developments within the continent of Europe before and it didn't end well.
We are watching with anxiety now as well.