The Irish Times view on the European elections: containing the far-right surge

The decision by Dutch right-wing parties to negotiate a technical coalition excluding far-right leader Geert Wilders from the premiership despite his winning most votes in last year’s general elections contains both a warning and a lesson for voters in June’s European Parliament elections. The warning is that far-right parties are expected to surge in support across the 27 member-states. The lesson is that translating such electoral success into political power at EU level will depend on whether other right-wing parties are willing to work with them.

While Dutch coalition bargaining is distinctively prolonged and complex it is in part a microcosm of EU-wide developments. The refusal of Wilders’s three negotiating partners to allow him become prime minister shows how much far-right parties depend on mainstream centre-right ones. A similar refusal of Portuguese parties to share power with the far-right Chega party foreshadows tough bargaining in the European Parliament after the votes are in.

Wilders and Chega expect to join the Identity and Democracy group led by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. Other radical right parties like Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy are members of the European Conservatives and Reformists group. These two groups could have 183 MEPs out of 720. Translating that into influence on Brussels decision-making will depend on whether they can reach agreements with other groups, especially the European People’s Party. At national levels there are stronger norms among voters and leaders against EPP members doing such deals but that is weaker in the European Parliament. They also compete with the ID and ECR groups and are likely to decide not to cooperate formally with them at European level.

Any plans to exclude far-right parties from formal power will require coalitions with the centrist Renewal group, the Socialists and Democrats and the Greens. Voters need to be more aware of post-election realities between mainstream and radical right party groups .