Patrick Costello says it’s time to stop hoping for the best as the far right organise across nations
As the new EU Commissioners appoint their senior staff (Cabinets) and move into their Berlaymont offices, there is some trepidation in the corridor talk about what the second Trump Presidency will bring. On the economic side of the house, the talk is of how to mitigate the impact of the expected tariff hikes. On the security side, it is of Ukraine and NATO. There is a lot of wishful thinking about the hawkish credentials of Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz at State and National Security Council, and the economic policy credentials of Scott Bessent at the Treasury. Maybe the next few years won’t be as catastrophic as they look, people say, with fingers firmly crossed behind their backs.
What is being talked about much less than the policy impacts are the political impacts on a Europe where the far right is in a much stronger position than it was during Trump’s last Presidency. During that mandate, consigliere Steve Bannon spent much of the time holed up in the Brussels townhouse of a Belgian far right politician, a base from which he spent his time working on the coordination of like-minded Europeans including Orban, le Pen, Meloni and Farage. When new parties appeared, such as Vox in Spain, there was Bannon on the platform. As one American pro-democracy activist said to me at the time, “We are used to the idea that fascists can’t coordinate transnationally because … they are nationalists, right? But what we are seeing now is the development of a fascist international”. Bannon set up The Movement, a Brussels-based organisation, to promote European far-right groups and prepare a single platform for the 2019 elections. In parallel, he tried to set up an academy to train right wing politicians in an Italian monastery.
Both these projects foundered mainly because of a lack of resources and detailed understanding of European law. However, it will be important to be on alert for similar initiatives coming from across the Atlantic, and not just because Bannon is out of jail. They will be landing on much more fertile ground than eight years ago with three main differences from last time.
First, around one third of the EU’s governments now involve the far right in some way. Viktor Orban, currently holding the EU Presidency, welcomed Trump’s victory, posting “On the road to a beautiful victory. It’s in the bag!”. Having been lionised by the MAGA crowd in recent years, we can expect transnational political efforts by Trump’s people to start from Budapest and work across the halls of government and party offices in Rome, The Hague, Vienna and others where they are now welcome guests.
Second, this time there are potentially many more media resources and money available for this work with the likes of Elon Musk willing to use his platform and resources to support far right activities across Europe. No accident then that two of the far-right political groups in the European Parliament nominated Musk in September for the Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – he didn’t get to the final shortlist. Musk has developed a particularly close relationship with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni in the last year, after she invited him to be the guest star at Atreju, the annual party thrown by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy. He has also expressed support for the AfD in Germany, voicing the hope that they win the forthcoming elections. Posing as a free speech activist, Musk has played a big role in normalising far right discourse in the public space.
Third, there is the political impact of an early end to the war in Ukraine. If the Trump administration brokers a deal between Russia and Ukraine, whatever its content or effect on European security, it will remove the major obstacle to a political alliance between Orban’s Patriots for Europe group in the Parliament (which includes Le Pen’s Rassemblement National) and Meloni’s European Conservatives & Reformists group. Between them the two groups have 164 MEPs meaning that a merger would make them the second group, overtaking the Socialists & Democrats (136), and breathing down the neck of the centre-right EPP (188). In two years time, this would give them the right to a much greater number of the more powerful Committee Chairs and Vice-Presidency posts next time they are up for grabs.
Trump’s election on 5 November was like watching a car crash for the US political system. What we are now seeing in Europe is like seeing the same car crash in slow motion: the car has been hit, is slowly revolving in mid-air and we are averting our eyes while it slowly crashes to the ground. The second Trump Presidency looks likely to speed up the impact: it’s time to stop hoping for the best.