Rosa Balfour, Catherine Fieschi, and Cas Mudde discuss the rise and normalization of the radical right across Europe.
With key elections approaching across Europe, radical-right parties are poised to maintain and even expand their political influence.
Rosa Balfour, Catherine Fieschi, and Cas Mudde explore whether a more right-leaning EU constitutes an existential threat, or if such concerns are overstated.
Catherine Fieschi, Cas Mudde, March 19, 2026, "Is the Radical-Right Threat Existential or Overstated?," Carnegie Europe.
Rosa Balfour, January 24, 2026, "The EU Finally Used an Economic Threat Against Trump. But the Markets Forced His Climbdown," The Guardian.
Rosa Balfour, Stefan Lehne, Elena Ventura, September 22, 2025 "The European Radical Right in the Age of Trump 2.0," Carnegie Europe.
Rosa Balfour, April 30, 2025, "Europe Tried to Trump-Proof Itself. Now It’s Crafting a Plan B," Emissary, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Rosa Balfour and Stefan Lehne, April 18, 2024, "Charting the Radical Right’s Influence on EU Foreign Policy," Carnegie Europe.
Catherine Fieschi, April 10, 2025, "What Le Pen’s Sentence Means for the Rule of Law in Europe," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Catherine Fieschi, August 16, 2023, "Populocracy," Agenda Publishing.
Cas Mudde, December 4, 2024, "Democracy is in a doom spiral—but it isn’t dead yet," Prospect Magazine.
Cas Mudde, September 2019, "The Far Right Today," Polity.
Rosa Balfour
Hello and welcome to Carnegie Europe's third appointment in the series Europe Head-to-Head. Today's question is, is the radical right threat existential or overstated? We’re going to look into how the radical right is upending democracy, European politics, and international relations. And we have two stellar speakers to do that with me today. Catherine Fieschi, whom I'm very glad to announce has just joined Carnegie Europe as a visiting scholar and is the author of Populocracy, among other things. And Cas Mudde, who is a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia and an award-winning author of multiple books on populism and the radical right.
So I'm going to start today's discussion. I'd like our speakers who have also written some papers for us, and you can find them on Carnegie Europe's website. I would like to ask them directly the question, is the radical right threat, existential or overstated? Catherine, let's start with you.
Catherine Fieschi
I think there's absolutely no doubt that it's an existential threat and we can talk about later. you know why it's really not overstated, but it's existential Because I think that the radical right, in Europe but also elsewhere paralyzes debates and decision making on issues that are actually a matter of existential survival for Europe, for European countries but also for the EU. Debates on defense, debates on security, debates on AI, on the environment, in the dynamics that it encourages, in the ideas that it propagates, it basically creates a situation in which the debate can't happen and the decision making is paralyzed and therefore I would say it's an existential threat.
Rosa Balfour
And Cas, let me turn to you with exactly the same question. overstated or existential?
Cas Mudde
So I think it is an existential threat. If I look at Europe not as the European Union, but as a conglomerate of liberal democracies, I think the far right is an existential threat to liberal democracy. It is fundamentally opposed to it, not only in words, but we also know that in deeds, in terms of the policy and in terms of government. At the same time, it is not a homogenous threat in the sense that well, far right parties in different countries roughly want the same thing. They don't have the same power. And one of the problems I have with some of the discourse around it is that I think we give the far right at times too much power and I think that we too often reduce the threat to liberal democracy to the far right. Whereas the far right is nowhere a true majority, not at the popular level, nor at the elite level. And I think that we should not close our eyes to the importance of the collaboration of the mainstream with the far right in posing that threat.
Rosa Balfour
Thank you. I'd like to unpack this existential or overstated question a little bit because as you both mentioned, first of all, the different levels at which we need to look at, there's the national level, the liberal democracies, there's the level of the functioning of the European Union, and of course the Hungarian vetoing, power has been very much the talk of the town over the past several years, because it has influenced the way in which the European Union is able to respond to the Russian threat. And of course with Donald Trump in the White House, there's a big international piece, to this. and I think both of you in your answers, while you were straightforward in answering the direct question, but both of you raised some really important questions. And I was wondering whether we can unpack this a little bit before we move on to speaking about, you know, we've just had a set of recent elections in Europe. So I'd like to hear your take also on how these elections, you know, what do they mean for your general analysis. So, Catherine, maybe you could start, you know, just opening up, unpacking this, the existential threat, question perhaps following these three levels, you know, liberal democracy, the European Union and the more global side of things.
Catherine Fieschi
Sure. So I think from the point of view of liberal democracy, I completely agree with Cas. I mean the, the radical right is an enemy of liberal democracy, even though as he says, it's not the only enemy of liberal democracy. in terms of liberal democracy, I think that the, the way to understand the radical right is that it's not simply tinkering around the edges and trying to push you know, one view amongst others. It is calling into question quite fundamentally, some of the bigger achievements of liberal democracy. Right. So the achievement of for example equal justice, for everyone, a non-politicized judiciary, to a free media, and just you know, basic norms of, of equality, of equality of, of status in front of the law. You know, there's de facto exclusions being brought back, but also of equality, of equality, of access, of equality of status. There's a sense in which we're witnessing a return to for example, a form of masculinism that isn't you know, simply a conservative view of the world. It's a very different challenge to a world that had moved forward in terms of granting or, or perceiving equality between, between the sexes or between the, the, the genders. So I think that you know this is, this is, it's pretty fundamental. It's a different hierarchy of goods, it's a different hierarchy of values that. It's also a different hierarchy in terms of who gets to participate in that debate and how you treat your opponent in that debate. The opponent often being reduced to an enemy that should be sort of not just excluded, not just won over, but actually potentially annihilated. So, these are, you know, these are in a sense, propositions that are fundamentally at odds with what liberal, with the liberal democratic order. And I think that one of the gravest as the last point, you know, on this, one of the gravest issues is the, that that the, that the radical right weaponizes is it weaponizes liberal democracies, natural dynamics of compromise, trying to reach for consensus, you trying to negotiate in order to create situations which aren't necessarily a win win but where you know, sometimes you win and sometimes, sometimes you lose and compromise in the radical right playbook. And we can see it with Trump all the time, you know, reaching for compromise, is a sign of weakness. So, in that respect I think it's a very concerted attack on, on the liberal, on the liberal democratic, liberal, democratic order. Would you like me to go on with the rest or pass on to Cas?
Rosa Balfour
Shall we pass on to Cas? I think let's make this as interactive as possible. And Cas, feel free to add on. but let me also perhaps introduce this idea of it being overstated. And I think politics in Europe certainly for the past 10, 15 years there's been a lot of sort of crying wolf, right about the radical right. And if they come to power they're going to bring in a fascist state. And then of course they have been in power and the fascist state hasn't necessarily come about. and therefore those who have cried wolf have lost credibility vis a vis the electorate. So I think there's been a real challenge in right. Sizing the nature of the radical right. So maybe if you could you know, say a little bit about the, the existential threat and you know, adding on to Catherine, but also the overstate over Stating and, or how to right size the radical right.
Cas Mudde
I fully agree with Catherine's like, assessment with liberal democracy. Don't have much to add there. So, I think there are two levels of overstating. First is say, the ideological threat by, equating the contemporary far right with historical fascism. And I think that a, it is inaccurate at the very least in what the far-right offers. They’re not openly anti-democratic. Whether they are actually in practice anti-democratic or not is partly a different issue, particularly for the public debate. I mean, you can't convince people by saying, well, they say this, but actually they mean that. I have no evidence for this, but this is what I feel. Right. So, you have to engage primarily with what they say. and the message is fundamentally different here in the US the far right is undermining democracy in the name of democracy. Hitler was not undermining democracy in the name of democracy. He was fundamentally against democracy. Which means that you can have, to a certain extent, you could have a more open debate and a more honest debate. In the 1930s, like at the moment, we have these kind of complete fraud debates with largely bad faith actors who pretend to be something they're not, who all the time switch, who redefine terms. which makes it all, I think, very difficult. I think in terms of the overstating. Right. Is also that the attraction of the contemporary far right has a lot to do with a democratic argument. The people who vote for the far-right vote for a democratic, in their idea, a democratic movement that gives power back to the people. And so again, if you ignore that because you think, well, they are not real Democrats, that might all be true, but that doesn't help you understand and therefore fight the threat that you're, that you're, facing now. I think my biggest problem with where I think it's the overstatement is that for decades now, we have reduced the threat to liberal democracy to the far right, which we then also extended to. If we don't stop them now, we will have Auschwitz again. And if that is at stake, then you're allowed to do all kind of things. And so we have decades of, in a sense, limiting immigration, but also increasingly dehumanizing immigrants and refugees all for the higher good. If we don't do it, then the Nazis will come. At the same time, we've had Tony Blair already, tightened immigration when there was no far right to speak of in electoral terms, but it was all allowed because that is the alternative, I think we hide and we allow mainstream democratic establishment to hide behind the far right. There is absolutely no doubt that Orban constitutes a threat to whatever the EU is and wants to be. But if Orban is taken out, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to get everything that we now think we get. There is widespread unease about support for Ukraine, and particularly when people under, understand that that money is not going to other things. There is obviously widespread, resentment over immigration. And while Orban took the flag in 2015-16. Because it helped him, without Orban, other would have stepped, up like Margaret in the Netherlands would also have not allowed these things to happen. And so Orban plays an important role. But if Orban is taken out, the European Union still has most of the problems it has today. The difference is with the global scale is that if Trump goes, there is a very significant difference. Trump is, because he is a Trump and because he's the leader of the most powerful country in the world, has really changed the influence of the far right globally. Now, sure, if JD Vance would be his successor, you would still have that. But if the U.S. goes back to a democratic government or even an old school Republican government, the power of the far right in global politics directly diminishes significantly. And so I think that is an important role. It doesn't mean that the far right isn't relevant, but it has an outsized influence at the moment because Trump is in the White House.
Rosa Balfour
You've both raised a lot of points that I'd like to come back to during the course of our discussion, but we've just had a string of elections here, so I'd like to get your comments on that in particular. I turn to Catherine because I would like you to, among other things, to focus on France. You're based in Paris. there's going to be a presidential election in France that, next year that is really focusing, the minds, of people. And then there were, you know, local elections, just finished, over the weekend, and the results were mixed. I think my question is, you know, what does this tell us about, about, you know, can this be some kind of precursor to the, presidential elections, next year? and I'd also like to, you know, maybe get also Cas, on other election results that we've had. you know, what do you make of these? You know, there's also, we've had Denmark, Slovenia, France local elections. Local elections also in Germany but also there was a by election in, in the UK which was quite interesting. So, I'd like to both to comment a little bit on these and what they tell us and there's a lot of commentary saying that the Trumpian right is not good for the radical right in Europe. I'd like to have your take on that as well. Catherine, do you want to start?
Catherine Fieschi
Sure. I think the French local elections were very interesting, which is not necessarily the case for French local elections, but these were actually slightly nail biting because they are the last significant elections election as you mentioned before, the 2027 presidentials and what will no doubt follow, which will be the parliamentary elections in, in the immediate aftermath. they're interesting for a number of reasons. One is that they are a reminder of what Cas was referring to a moment ago, which is the way in which mainstream parties can you know, very much facilitate, both in the way that they frame issues but also quite, in quite outright ways, you know, want to go into coalitions, and etc. So the specter that really haunts France at the moment is the possibility, you know, of real alliances, real coalitions between the center right and, and the radical right. and, and this is something of obviously that we've seen play out in some ways kind of flirtation, flirtation plus I would argue between the center right at the European Parliament and the far-right groups in the European Parliament. So the first thing it tells us is that actually what we have there is a mainstream right that is far too willing to extend a hand, far too willing either to do the work of the far right thinking as usual mistakenly that somehow it would protect them and consolidate their electoral base when in fact what it does is really you know, fan the flames of their rivals. The second interesting thing about it, I think was that the Rassemblement national, the French radical-right party didn't do hugely well in that it didn't capture enormous cities. It got Nice, which is the one large city that it captured and then a couple of symbolic places, particularly in Northern France, that had usually really been the sort of the stomping ground for the left or even the far left. And certainly once upon a time the Communist Party, so there were some symbolic gains, but they didn't capture large cities. There's a kind of leitmotif that's emerging in France on this. Which suggests that there is a glass ceiling, as everybody is putting it, on the Rassemblement national. And this is what these elections prove. I would urge caution because the fact is that there are no votes for the Rassemblement national, in Paris at all anymore. There are barely any votes for the Rassemblement national, in the large cities. Because most people have been priced out of these cities, which simply means that their voters have moved elsewhere. And so the fact that the raison Rassemblement national captured, you know, consolidated its presence right across the territory without anything spectacular to show for it. But, you know, really a consolidation of their base suggests to me that we should be very careful about this idea that somehow that this is. This proves that there really is a glass ceiling. We've been talking about this glass ceiling for a while now in France. But actually, you know, it has steadily increased its capacity to mobilize. They are still the first party, you know, well ahead. I mean, 15-20 points ahead, of the next one, in. In the polls. So I think that, you know, we. We need to. To. To take this, This sort of slight rejoicing with a grain of salt.
Rosa Balfour
What about Italy, where there's been a referendum and many are saying that, you know, Meloni now might call. In fact, I even read that they might call snap elections just like in Denmark. And I'll turn to Cas for Denmark in a moment.
Catherine Fieschi
So, I think that first of all, it was a constitutional referendum on something very precise. And yes, Meloni, who was leading on the side of basically reforming the judiciary, lost. And she lost badly. She lost 46% to 54%. 54% of Italians rejected this. I think it's really important to avoid making the mistake of thinking, as somebody put it to me yesterday, that therefore this means that Italy has weak government. I don't think Italy has weak government. I really don't think that, Meloni is coming out that weekend from this referendum. What it shows, which I think is healthy, is that she doesn't have a blank check and that Italians really, first of all, Italians don't like it when you mess with the constitution. They certainly don't like it when you mess with the judiciary, which was put in place in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, in which they see as having rooted out a lot of the corruption from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. So I think that it's, I mean it's good news. It means that if she gets too close to tinkering with institutions and the constitution, she will get pushback. But I think it's a very, particular type of refusal. It's a very particular. No, that the Italian voters put to her. And I don't actually think it's a good measure of her standing in Italian public opinion or of her support.
Rosa Balfour
So, Cas, I could see you nodding through during what. When Catherine was speaking. So, unless you have something specific to add, I would like to ask you about Denmark because here we have, you know, a government that has been doing precisely those things that you were talking about earlier. That is, you know, carrying, putting forward some policies that really, sort of bread and butter policies for the radical right. But it's been done through a social Democratic, government that many have hailed as the solution to addressing the radical right. So would these elections vindicate that idea or not?
Cas Mudde
Well, I think that whole idea already has always been on very problematic, empirical ground. the big victory of Frederickson was already an electoral defeat. And one of the things that we are very bad at is understanding political systems. And so we just look at electoral results and we think that they translate in exactly the same way across systems. But that Social Democrats in Denmark can do certain things that labor cannot do in the UK for example, because they traditionally have block politics, which means that you lose towards your mates and so your block stays the same. You lose a little bit on top of that. Fredriksen has been very clever in working both with the right and with the left. But the fact of the matter is this is the worst result since 1915. And so in this sense she is in exactly the same boat as the SPD or the Partij van de Arbeid in the Netherlands. The fact that the result is a little bit higher, but it's not even that much higher than these parties. Right? But you also have to see where do they come from. Right? And so it's very clear that she has not been successful in making her party bigger. Importantly, she has barely been successful in making the far right smaller because the far right, while fragmented, is roughly about 17% or something. And at the height it was 21%. So what do we actually have now? We have a complete mainstreaming and normalization of nativism, which is pretty much from the center left to the far right has been completely accepted while we still have the far right, extremely strong right. So if you're. If the goal was to make the Social Democrats stronger, that failed. If the goal was to defeat the far right, that failed. Leaving aside the ethical issue that you just not should, you should be databased. Right. So I think that the Danish case is a dramatic case which has been misread for over a decade now. But honestly, together with so many of our colleagues on the basis of so much research, we have argued to Social Democrats across Western Europe that this doesn't work and it doesn't seem to matter everywhere. They will keep doing it and it is mind boggling because it doesn't help them like. And so I don't think it will change because she will remain prime minister. And as Politico already wrote yesterday, like left wing parties can learn from that. And so yes, if you're, if your whole idea is to stay empowered and even that you cannot learn because Starmer is not going to stay in power because the whole block structure is different. Right. So the Danish case is mostly a phenomenal success for the far right, which like, the far right in my country, the Netherlands, refers all the time to the Danish Social Democrats as that is the model of their policy. I mean that's the world we live in. So I think there are two other things I want to make. I think one of the things that we miss in a lot of our debate about the success of failure of the far right is how our expectations are changing all the time. Right. And today we're happy when the far right doesn't win the majority. I think we can reflect a little bit more on that. Like, I mean, is that truly the bar that we're busy with? it is a very defensive idea. And, and with the idea is that democracy does well when the far right loses or when the far right doesn't get a majority. Right? No, democracy is very weak even when they get only 40%. It also shows the normalization of the far right. We find it normal that the far right is the biggest party. We find it normal that the far right, like, almost wins elections. Finally, Slovenia, which is a very specific case. I think for me the key thing about that is it still shows how mainstream the far right is. Let's not forget that SDS and Janša are part of the European People's Party. And everyone has talks about, well, they kicked out Orban, whatever. I mean the EPP is completely connected to the far right. they govern with the far right in a significant number of countries at significant levels, and they still have, like, openly far-right parties like SDS. And so I think what all of that shows is, first of all, the far right's here to stay. It's just part of our party system, of our politics, which means that times they lose, at times they win. If they lose, it doesn't mean that they will forever lose. If they win, it doesn't mean they will forever win. I mean, I was asked by a newspaper I will not name which one like to write a story about, like, how the far right is losing. And that they're actually that this doesn't mean anything for the future, which of course will never be published. Right. But we really have to get away from this. Like, endless stories of the far right is over, or the far right is, like, taking over? Like. No, the far right, in most cases lives according to very similar rules, electoral and political, as other parties. But they are part of our system. And to me, the key question is the normalization. And that's the other thing. What we consider far right has also moved. So if you would go back to. You pick up a couple of people from the 1990s and you let them look at what labor stands for today, they will absolutely say, if you don't say this is labor, they'll say that's BNP. I'm not saying labor is BNP, but what we find normal immigration policy these days used to be without any debate as xenophobic policies in the 1990s.
Rosa Balfour
Cas, in fact, I'd like to come to something because you've been talking about the far right, and in your book on the far right, you draw a distinction between the radical right and the extreme right, with the far right, the radical right being illiberal but working within democratic systems, and the extreme right being anti-democratic and, you know, arguing against democracy. And today we've used radical right, following your definitions, in a lot of our work. But today you're saying far right. Is this an indication of the fact that in a way it doesn't really matter anymore, whether they are, those distinctions in the sense that we have this, you know, growing a, normalized, far right, some of whom claim to be Democratic, but actually they're not pursuing Democrat, you know, policies in support of democracy. Am I interpreting you right on this one?
Cas Mudde
Yes. I think there are two reasons to use the term far right these days more than radical right. So first of all, there are some parties that are successful that are extreme right. Forum for democracy in the Netherlands, for example, Republica in Slovakia before that Golden Dawn. They are clearly like extreme right. What is, I think, even more important is we have more and more hybrid parties that particularly speak in a radical-right way, but that do extreme-right things. And these are very important ones. Trump, for example, is far right, if not extreme right. Bolsonaro the same. While talking democratically, he supported a coup and was very positive about the dictatorship. Orban, while claiming to be democratic, is undermining democracy. And I don't think that extreme right is the correct term in many cases because it only captures one part. But radical right is too naive a term now because we know what they do. And so far right, as a consequence, allows us to kind of see that radicalization that we see within the radical right, which I truly believe is in part a response to the mainstreaming of their positions. They need to stand out. And if your mainstream parties are already treating immigration as a problem and as a threat to national identity and security, you're going to take it even further. But at the same time they're not openly standing for a non-democratic regime. And so they're not the same as in the 30s where they said, look, democracy is the rule of the mediocre person, we need one Fuhrer. So, I think far right captures it better. Even though there are certainly still parties that I consider the radical right. And where I don't see extreme influence. But AfD is also a good example. AfD is not just radical right, but also not openly anti-democratic. And so far right captures that.
Rosa Balfour
Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. So we've actually, historically, over the past couple of decades, you've kind of morphed from the populist right to a radical right to a far right. Catherine, let me turn to you. Cas has mentioned a lot of the mainstreaming questions and also, which I think is important and will also allow us perhaps to pivot to a next important election, which is in Hungary. The fig leaf question, which is very present in European Union politics actually, where usually behind a no finger, there are another couple of countries who are, staying quiet. Can you perhaps say something about this mainstreaming, about the normalization of the radical right, about, you know, what is the responsibility really of mainstream political parties? Let's start with this and then I have another question, follow up question so
Catherine Fieschi
No, I just think it's a very good question because on the one hand, it's true that this radical right has normalized and to some extent parts of the media have helped to normalize it. Parts of the mainstream political parties have helped to normalize it. But one of the things that I find always extremely interesting is that despite that we don't as observers often or others in our kind of analyst, camp, we don't necessarily We aren't necessarily as exacting toward them as we are towards some of the mainstream parties. So what are the things that we can do against this normalization? Well, one of the things that's quite interesting is that it's true we could for example look at you know, whether the internal dynamics to a party suggest that they are more or less democratic in, in their selections and so on and so forth. But the obvious thing that we can do is to actually look at their programs, right? Look at their party platforms, look at what they actually say, you know, come, come election time. I think, you know, it's very interesting if you look at the Rassemblement national political program, despite all this so called normalization and mainstreaming, if you look at their policies, program, it is exactly the same as it was 5, 10, 15 years ago, right? So for example, the cornerstone of the whole program is what they call national preference, right? So you would have, so basically a form of nativism that you know, would give jobs, certainly civil service jobs, but any other job, you know, it is that sentence of you know, British jobs for British people. Well this would be French jobs for French people, right? So I think that, and I think it's, it's quite It's incumbent upon us, it's incumbent upon also journalists, to do the homework, right, and actually say no, look at this program. Nothing has actually changed. They are putting forward the same arguments, they are talking in the same way. So that. Because there's a, there's a huge distinction between what you'll get, you know, Marine Le Pen or even just for that matter Giorgia Meloni to say, you know, on primetime television and what actually is being produced by the party and so on and so forth. And it's not Just dog whistle politics, right? It's not, it's not just words that you know, resonate differently with different audiences. It is that actually I think we're not digging deep enough and actually, and saying, look, national preference, what does this actually mean for this country? Let's look at this squarely in the face. What does it mean for our hospitals? What does it mean for social care? What does it mean for child care? All of these, areas where we are desperate, for example, for workers put in national preference, what happens? So both are kind of emphasis on the fact that nothing has changed and also really pushing the reasoning out to say, let's look at what this actually means, in practice. And I feel as though that's not really being, really being done enough. And if we were to do that at the national level, but also that at the European level, for example, when we look at parties that defend the idea of defense, defense, but then, and defend the idea of sovereignty, but then refuse to back any kinds of measures, that would, that would help Ukraine actually pointing to the fact that this is happening again and again, right in very visible, in very visible votes. This, I think is our responsibility in terms of showing that the normalization is also happening because of what we as observers are not doing and not just because of what, what they as clever parties are doing.
Rosa Balfour
I'd like to talk about the Hungarian elections. There’s going to be a vote on the 12th of April. And I mean, the two things I'd like, obviously, you know, this is an eventful election. It is clear that in the European Union, you know, many are hoping that Orban will be defeated. He's trailing in the polls by several points actually for the first time ever. So, some EU decisions have been postponed, waiting for that vote. The other thing that is happening is that a string of global right leaders have been endorsing Trump and there's going to be a string of visits, these days. And JD Vance is also scheduled to go, soon. And there's a bit of a debate as to whether Trump's endorsement is actually enabling and supporting the radical rights. And a couple of papers were put out, a few months ago arguing that Europeans are learning from Trump and they're adopting these sorts of practices, and narratives of Trump. So this is a real threat. And then there are those saying, well actually it's a bit more of a poison chalice, because Trump and policies are not, very favorable to Europeans. So Cas, what do you think? Does Trump's endorsement of Orban, and here I am reading a question, proper question, coming from someone, of our audience. Does Trump's endorsement of Orban increase or decrease the likelihood of his victory on 12th of April?
Cas Mudde
So let me first address it, generally and then focus on Orban. So I think Trump is a double-edged sword, and by and large whatever he does that doesn't directly affect Europeans seems to be non-problematic to positive. So certainly the borders and what is what far-right supporters consider to be authoritarian policies and protective policies. They don't seem to care much about the violence that's involved or ice in the streets. Right. But the tariffs upset them a lot. And so in the end it's a self-interest, even though I think a lot of the supporters of European far-right parties would be absolutely terrified if they would live in the reality that we live in here in the U.S. and they cannot even imagine what it is to have paramilitary forces, masked in your streets. it doesn't concern them, even though the terrorists barely concern them. Right. But that, and that in Greenland, right, Those, those are seen as really problematic. Greenland, particularly of course in the north. And so you see that, you see the far-right distancing and then coming closer. Whatever the image is of Trump, if it is more about, going against the establishment, going against immigrants, going against the wokeness, right, then he's embraced. If it is more about the tensions with Europe and not the European Union, right, but national sovereignty like Greenland, like tariffs, then they start to distance themselves a bit. And most do this very easily and very cleverly. And they can do this because in the end it doesn't matter that much. And I think the same reason why Marine Le Pen was embracing Putin for a long time was that Marine Le Pen was being isolated in her own country and had virtually no one of significance that would engage with her. And as a consequence, Putin was one of the few, and not himself, but the circles around him who wouldn't directly push her away. And that helped her. But today there are very few far right that are still so isolated they don't need that. And so Orban doesn't necessarily need this. It will help him. But first of all, he controls the media. So the potential voter who will vote for him already is on the, on this kind of diet of pro-regime media. So they already know that Trump is with them. They already have that worldview that I don't think any Hungarian knows who JD Vance is. Right. I mean in, in Hungary the elections are about the economy, the economy and to a certain extent about corruption. And that is, that is the only thing and the only thing that, that Orban needs is that is a distraction from that. And if Trump helps distract, that will be the case. But I honestly don't see the distraction. Now, the problem is that Hungary has the most disproportional electoral system these days, which means that potentially he can lose by maybe even double digits and still hold on to power. More importantly, and this is where the postponement perhaps doesn't play much of a role is what we see in Poland, we will see much more extreme in Hungary. Orban has entrenched himself into the system in a way that his power is only partly dependent on holding on holding power. The whole media will remain in his hands and the funding is not done by the state but through private companies. The same applies for all kind of positions. And so where Tusk already has a hard time changing things fundamentally in Poland, I mean in Hungary it will be far worse. Leaving aside that we will have to see what the relationships are between Peter Magyar and Tisza, and the rest of the opposition who, who are not necessarily very close. And finally, while like any Democrat, I think I also hope that Peter Magyar wins and that Tisza wins. Tisza is a very right-wing party that is very Eurosceptic, that is to a certain extent Ukraine skeptic. And if we wouldn't compare them to Orban, but we would compare them to let's say the CDU, then we would consider them a very right-wing party and Magyar's space in Hungary isn't that big to maneuver. So I'm not sure that he will be able to do that much like he will not obstruct in the way that Orban obstructs. But he will certainly, he will certainly push back on several of these policies because he feels that like they are not his major concern and that he doesn't have enough leeway on it.
Rosa Balfour
I think the first thing as you mentioned, you know, Euroscepticism and I think the first question really is how do we envisage the impact of these dynamics on the European Union? But also, and maybe I'll turn to Catherine more on this, but also on the international stage. I mean, you know, we're in a context of war. We’re in a context in which, I mean, you know, it's been a long time since the debate on the end of the liberal international order started, but now it feels dangerously real to what extent, you know, these phenomena were really born as domestic problems. And until recently, and the three of us worked together on the paper, 10 years ago, it was on the impacts of populism on European foreign policy. And at that time nobody was looking at this because all these parties had very nationalist agendas and not, not international, but, you know, what are the external impacts? And then I'd like to ask both of you, and then I'd like to keep a few moments just for thinking about, you know, what can be done. So Catherine, let me start with you. And you know, the European and international reverberations of these domestic changes.
Catherine Fieschi
So I think it's in terms of the European, reverberations, I think it's very interesting because we are at a time where these parties are part of the challenge to the European Union, you know, where some of them are readily agreeing with some of Trump's stances, you know, not tariffs and not Greenland, but in terms of his conceptions of sovereignty. And we're at a time where they're getting in the way, particularly somebody like Orban, of the EU being able to support Ukraine in the way that it wants to support Ukraine and partly to support Ukraine, for its own defense, for its own existential, reasons vis-a-vis Russia. So it's a time where they're both contributing to this destabilization. But because of the level of destabilization, what we have seen, willy nilly, not nearly fast enough, as much as we'd like, but nevertheless, we see the European Union trying to build consensus over some of these issues, trying to work together over some of these issues. And you know, much like Trump is an electroshock to the European system in its kind of rethinking its defense capacities, rethinking its role in the international order. So these parties are also contributing to a kind of awakening of a different kind of Europeanism I think that than the more bureaucratic less exciting sort that characterizes most of my early life. So I think just like Trump is a double-edged sword for these parties, so these parties. Parties in some ways could also be a double-edged sword in terms of a kind of consciousness raising on behalf of Europeans. I think that that's clear. I think you know you're harking back to that publication 10 years ago where we were sort of scratching our heads a Trying to get people to take seriously the link between foreign policy and these parties and also to try and explain, explain what the link was. I think one of the ways in which this has changed is obviously first of all Trump, as Cas said earlier, you know, just kind of dragged them into this territory whether or not they. They liked it. And then I think that you know the, the other dynamic is the fact that I think over time these parties have learned that the domestic issues are still Core. Are still important to them. But you know gradually they started looking more and quite effectively at a form of transnational issue like migration, immigration etc. But then they became very good I think at you know, weaponizing some of the external issues that you know that have landed over the past few years. Ukraine is one of them. Kind of depicting themselves as the parties of peace. You know, Orban depicting himself as you know, not wanting the war and you know, Marine Le Pen rejecting the war and wanting peace. So you know they made the most of that I think you know, very much the conflict between or rather the war between Israel and Palestine and essentially the aftermath of 7th October. The far-right parties realized very quickly how easily they could weaponize that sometimes to kind of an extraordinary level where you all of a sudden had Marine Le Pen, the heir to Jean Marie Le Pen, notorious antisemite, now flipping her coat if you like, and joining the pro-Israeli demonstrations because this is actually quite a good way of weaponizing the kind of Islam and the debate that that was going on particularly over 2022-2023. So, I think that they've just become much, much more adept. And just to finish on this very quickly, what I think is interesting and it goes back to something Cas was saying. You know, obviously there are issues of sovereignty where, you know, when Trump misbehaves, these parties don't quite know what to do with it. When he walks into Greenland, for example. and. But I think that one of the interesting things is that they seem to be, most of them, quite comfortable with a different kind of world order. Let's call it a sphere of influence world where, you know, there's a carve out, Russia, the United States, and the Americas. On the other hand, you know, China in its corner, they seem to be quite comfortable with this sort of spheres of influence world in which actually their nations would be vassals. And this is, this is one of the contradictions that I think will stand up and bite them, probably.
Rosa Balfour
Cas, what about you? is the global Trumpian, right? is that where we're going?
Cas Mudde
I think the one thing where the far right remains very weak is a common program. They have a common enemy, but they don't have a common alternative. And of course, one of the key players, again, is Trump. You can't do anything globally without Trump, and Trump has absolutely no interest in anything else but Trump. And so he doesn't have an alternative vision. He just wants to pull the US out of everything. And then when he figures out that that actually creates a problem, he starts to bomb. Right. And then he gets out of it again because in the end he also doesn't care. Whereas for people like Le Pen and others, they have visions, but you can't actually make it with him. On top of that, Marine Le Pen's vision is different from the American far-right vision. Obviously, the French are central, and for the Americans, the Americans are central. And for the smaller countries in the far right, they understand that they have to work together, but it shouldn't be so included. And so what we have is we don't have an alternative. What they're doing is that they're weakening and to a certain extent, breaking the old order without replacing it. Which means that who is filling the gaps? China, for example. China is filling the gap in trade and is now hailed as a predictable partner. Russia, to a certain extent, India, is getting, more influence. And on every single country they're divided. Some are pro-China, others are anti-China. Many don't care about China. Most are pro-Israel, but several are actually not so pro-Israel. some are very much pro-U.S. or pro-Trump. Others are not. Some are pro-Russian, some are not. The only thing that they all know is that they don't like what is increasingly the old world order, and they work on that. I just want to say something about Europe, because I do, even though I am now probably pro-European, I'm still a Euroskeptic. And I do believe that one of the problems of the far right, again, is that it distracts from the real problems. It isn't the fact that there is this integrated, clearly articulated, strongly supported European vision that is being blocked by the far right. If we take the far right out, we have more commonality, but we still have in the end, national interest. Right? In the end, whatever push comes to shove, as we saw with Italy with regard to Russian oil, for example, or Germany and Russian oil, we still have countries doing what is best for them. We still have a massive gap between very vague pro-European narratives and actual actions. And importantly, we still don't have politicians who just say, okay, we need Europe today because we live in a hostile world where, like, we have Russia invading us, we have the U.S. threatening us, we have China, which goes against our interest. This is going to cost money. I get so annoyed by the fact that we have this whole debate about the European defense and supporting Ukraine, and we pretend that there are no cost involved there, and in a couple of years, people will figure out that there are cost involved, and then we will see how shallow that support has been. Right? This is the moment. This is the moment to finally say, okay, whether you like it or not. And I'm very much that type of European. Like, I would love for a world where there wasn't a European Union, we cannot afford that at this point in time. So, explain to me what we need to do to protect us from all these forces, because it is clear to me and pretty much all Europeans that we don't want to be a part of Trump's U.S. or Putin's Russia. Right? But we don't have that debate. And then often what we do have is, well, we. We will settle for this because we have the far right now. That's all true. But at the very least, create a vision and not that bureaucratic thing that Catherine has talked about. Like, we still have this incremental story, and the problem is that Europe costs money. Like, what we give to Europe, we take from somewhere else. I think that it's completely, completely understandable, but you have to have an honest conversation and to be honest, I don't see that conversation, for all the talk of like, external crisis make the EU stronger. I don't think the EU is that stronger, but I think that it has a huge opportunity. I think that at this moment there is a large portion of soft Euroskeptics that are rationally just there that they understand that Europe can only defend itself with the EU, but they want the narrative right, not just some bureaucratic actions.
Rosa Balfour
Well, thank you very much. I was going to ask you both to give me, you know, 30 seconds on, you know, what would you do? What was the single thing that we do? But we don't really have the time. So I think what Catherine is saying is that we need to have an honest debate is precisely what we are doing actually. And that is partly the point of this series called Europe Head-to-Head. And I also think that during the course of the discussion, both of you came up with some very good ideas. So I would encourage us all, I put myself in this boat as well given that I'm leading a think tank, to really work hard to call out mainstreaming, call out normalization of the radical right, think of alternative narratives about Europe. And thank you both for participating. This was really enlightening. We're going to be talking more about these topics on Monday 30th of March. We're going to have an event dedicated to precisely Hungary. So, tune in or join us in person here in Brussels. and let me thank you both, let me encourage our listeners/viewers to go and read your papers and also other publications that you've been producing because they are super topical and truly enlightening. And let me thank you all for your attention.