Although the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was marked by numerous demonstrations of support for the latter, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the various political dangers from central Europe. The situation in several countries of the region is becoming unpredictable or unstable, which is particularly worrying given that the wider geopolitical context has become dangerous and transatlantic military solidarity is weakening. I would like to talk about the emergence or consolidation of far-right political forces: xenophobic, certainly, but also Eurosceptic and pro-Russian, and therefore no friend to the Ukrainians. This is happening in member states of the European Union including, and most significantly, the most central member state with the highest population, as we were to find out on Sunday.
Our readers are already well aware of the situation in Hungary and the worrying behaviour of its leader and I shan’t repeat myself on that subject. In May and June, we will have the opportunity to see how long-lived Poland’s political stabilisation will be, when the results of the presidential elections come in. Right now, Slovakia, Romania, Austria and, of course, Germany call our attention more urgently.
In Slovakia, the elections of October 2023 saw a return to power of Robert Fico, a former socialist who has crossed the floor to become a populist and formed a government with the far right. He put a stop to his country’s military aid to Ukraine, is opposed to sanctions against Russia and has restricted the freedom of the national broadcasting service. Since the horrifying attack upon him in May 2024, he has toughened his stance towards the opposition and tightened up security for politicians. Increasingly hostile towards the European Union, he has set in train a constitutional reform that calls the primacy of EU law into question (see EUROPE 13567/4). Enraged that as of this year, he will no longer be able to benefit from Russian gas transiting via Ukraine, he has ruled out all alternatives, continuing to buy gas from the same source, even though this means paying top dollar. His relations with Ukraine are in a lamentable state.
What caused his popularity to collapse was his surprise visit to Vladimir Putin on 23 December 2024, following which he did not step foot on Slovakian soil for another fortnight; the press discovered that he was enjoying a bit of down-time in a luxury residence in Vietnam. On 10 January, the ‘Peace for Ukraine’ movement began a series of mass demonstrations throughout the country. Some 60,000 people took to the streets of Bratislava on 24 January to call for his resignation and to celebrate the country’s membership of the EU, waving blue flags with yellow stars on them. Anti-Fico demonstrations were also held in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Prime Minister responded by describing demonstrations as an attempted coup d’etat, but his parliamentary majority began to crumble and he narrowly survived a no-confidence vote.
The situation is also getting worse in Slovakia’s larger neighbour, Romania, but in a very different way. The first round of the presidential elections was held on 24 November 2024. The incumbent president, Klaus Iohannis, failed to secure re-election. The Romanians, who are unquestionably sick and tired of their politicians, voted en masse for an unknown, Câlin Georgescu, who came first with nearly 23% of votes cast. Investigations were held, to look into the methods used during the campaign, such as the social media network TikTok. On 6 December, two days ahead of the second round, the country’s Constitutional Court overturned the result of the election. The would-be winner denounced it as a coup d’état and many Romanians took to the streets in protest at the decision.
Tension mounted even higher amid delays in revealing the dates of the fresh elections. They were announced by the government on 16 January: they would be held on 4 and 18 May. Why so long? What was this meant to hide? President Iohannis, who also came in for criticism over his decision to remain in post as if nothing had happened, stepped down on 10 February, indicating a desire to pour oil on troubled waters. In any event, it had turned out that the victor in the first round was a pro-Russian populist, opposed to NATO, the European Union and any military aid to Ukraine. The intention is now to get the pro-Europeans together behind a single candidate, but there is nothing to say that he or she would be able to defeat someone who had the support of many voters in November. The importance of Romania’s strategic position needs no repeating.
It was thought for several months that Austria would have its first legally elected far-right Chancellor following the general elections of 29 September 2024. The party of this leaning, the FPÖ, led by Herbert Kickl, won the elections with nearly 29% of votes cast. It had campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket and called for Austrian neutrality on the international stage. The FPÖ has a number of previous criminal offences on its rap sheet (anti-Semitic acts, etc.) and did Russia a few espionage favours. This was not enough to put nearly one in three Austrians off them.
The outgoing Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, a member of the People’s Conservative Party (ÖVP), was invited by the President of the Republic, Alexander Van der Bellen, to form a coalition government of moderate parties; during the course of the autumn, negotiations with the Social Democrats and the tiny Liberal party struggled along, then broke down altogether. Nehammer withdrew. On 6 January 2025, the President transferred the task of forming a coalition to Kickl, while Alexander Schollenberg (ÖVP) became interim Chancellor. Kickl failed to reach an agreement with the ÖVP and threw in the towel on 12 February. Negotiations then resumed between the moderate parties, reported at the time of writing to be about to include. Never has it taken so long to form a government in Austria. Will it at least have stability?
During the election campaign in Germany, between 21 December and 21 February exactly, four attacks on civilians were committed by people not born in Germany, leaving 11 people dead and many injured: pure coincidence?! The results of the general election have now been confirmed. The CDU/CSU party came out victorious, with 28.5% of the votes: a victory but not a triumph, as its leader, Friedrich Merz, predicted 35% and opinion polls 30%. The real winner is the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), created in 2013, which doubled its 2021 result to receive 20.8% of votes cast. It is a hard far-right party, anti-migrant, calling for Germany to leave the European Union, indifferent to Ukraine’s fate and enjoying the frenetic support of Donald Trump and his acolytes.
The current Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, suffered an historic defeat; with 16.4% of the vote, the SPD has lost around ten points. The ecologists also took a hit, bagging only 11.6% of votes cast. Climate as a theme seems to have been absent from this campaign, even though the Germans are well known to be concerned about it. Finally, the third member of the outgoing coalition, the FDP (Liberal), has fallen below the 5% mark, leaving it without a single MP and having to pay the price for its leader’s disloyalty.
Clearly, Merz will be the future Chancellor. He has officially rejected any possibility of an alliance with AfD. 316 seats in the Bundestag are required for a majority: the only possible solution is an alliance between the CDU/CSU (208 seats) and the SPD (120). We have seen this kind of ‘grand coalition’ many times before, but putting together a common manifesto will be no easy task (see EUROPE 13586/11).
Obviously, it is to be hoped that things move quickly, as it is nearly 4 months since the Scholz government fell. For the European Union as well, it is far preferable for Germany to have a proper federal government and Merz is openly pro-European and well aware of the geopolitical changes afoot (see EUROPE 13584/5). But the strong showing for AfD has broken a taboo in a country that has made enormous efforts to denazify and promote democracy.
In the four cases discussed above, political forces have taken their places, undoubtedly for a long time to come, who will be doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding and, now, that of the President of the United States. What’s wrong with that picture?
Renaud Denuit