“The time has come to take back our homelands, to make Europe great again,” said the president of the Voice of Reason party, Afroditi Latinopoulou, on the stage of the conference of the far-right political group Patriots for Europe in Madrid, dressed in an all-white suit and a broad smile, applauded by France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
Last week, while speaking at the European Parliament, the MEP called for Europe to return to lignite and to plastic straws, closely following US President Donald Trump’s first declarations.
Following Europe’s trend, the parties to the right of New Democracy have gained a new air of confidence with the re-election of the US president. Trumpism glam has also acquired the form of an official invitation through the speech of US Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich, who acknowledged the network of related forces in Europe. Some had been ready for a long time.
Kyriakos Velopoulos, president of Greek Solution, was quick to invite Elon Musk to speak in the Greek and European parliaments as, he said that “he is leading the global effort for freedom of speech.” His party’s MEP Manolis Fragos is already proudly counting some retweets from Musk himself. Dimitris Natsios, president of the ultra-orthodox Niki party, called Trump’s win a glimpse of hope.
Apart from the competition over who will be the official successor of the ideas of the new American leadership at a national level, there are various other trends that are repeated in this political space at the European level and also appear in Greece. Kathimerini English Edition attempts to record the patterns, central slogans and declarations where these parties seem to be treading, managing to increase their voter pool.
Greek particularity
As Petros Ioannidis, political analyst at About People, says, “a year or two ago, the majority of Greeks had never heard the terms ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke.’ Now, they are part of the domestic debate. A month ago, USAID was something unknown to the vast majority, too. In recent days we’ve seen one analysis after another and commentary from experts and non-experts alike. The far-right agenda spreads quite easily and knows no borders.”
Georgios Samaras, assistant professor of public policy at King’s College London, points out that “Trump’s imitators in Greece have now multiplied because of his aggressive foreign policy. His agenda is aimed at promoting the far-right in Europe, where, by shifting the broader right to the extremes, he is attempting to present himself as the mainstream political movement.”
He mentions Latinopoulou as an example, who, “without any evidence of public policy other than communication policy,” and “without the use of an argument in areas such as the economy, foreign policy or domestic policy, she threatens migrants with the death penalty, relies on conspiracy theories about population shrinkage, and promotes an anti-green agenda.”
Vassiliki Georgiadou, professor of political science at Panteion University, says that “if anything makes the Greek far-right distinctive, it is its fragmentation.”
“We still have formations that cover the entire spectrum of the far-right: the most populist, the most extremist, the most religious element. None of them has a dynamic that shows that it can impose itself and dominate in this political space; that it can act as an umbrella. We have the characteristics of a mosaic, which of course when added up, we see that there is a dynamic.”
Petros Ioannidis has a similar view, noting that the fragmentation that is observed “actually ‘helps’ us not to experience similar situations in other European countries.”
“The fact that in Greece some 15 years ago, because of the economic crisis, we had the emergence of Golden Dawn, still serves as a deterrent to such harsh choices.”
MEGA like MAGA
The dominant slogan is “Make Europe Great Again” (MEGA) versus “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), despite the fact that Trump’s slogan essentially contradicts theirs, as the US president’s vision does not coexist with a strong Europe.
As Georgiadou notes, Musk himself gives this direction and promotes the slogan “MEGA.”
“Despite the contradiction, there is common ground in MEGA and MAGA, a revival of national borders and their protection, identity, culture. The white Western race, European and American, the white, Christian man is an ideotype that permeates both MEGA and MAGA,” she says.
As she points out, we see some form of chauvinism in the welfare state, as these parties have a social agenda, but one that appeals to the indigenous population.
“They present themselves as advocates of the welfare state, infiltrate the lower social strata and create a second pool of votes. This, as seen in Greek Solution in particular, stimulates their multiselectivity, giving them access to a larger part of the political-ideological space.”
Single woman
Despite the fact that this political space promotes a return to the traditional family, we see interesting contradictions in its representation.
In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is led by Alice Weidel, the first openly gay woman to lead a party that opposes same-sex marriage. Weidel has a civil partnership with a Swiss film producer from Sri Lanka and they have adopted two children.
In France, divorced Le Pen is leader of the National Rally. In Greece, Latinopoulou is a young single woman, who often speaks of the need to return to the traditional family, which can only comprise a father, a mother and children.
As Georgiadou says, the far-right parties have started to promote women leaders in order to attract the female audience, which is traditionally a minority among their voters.
“But this did not change their view of the place of women in the family, their view on demographics. The personal example doesn’t change the ideological narrative, it’s just that some of the choices in this space create windows of opportunity to infiltrate other audiences.”
In France, for example, the gap between men and women in terms of votes for Le Pen’s party has now closed, as she has helped to pass as having a more modern female profile.
Also, “proclaimed homosexuality does not have to be paired with a progressive stance, it may well be paired with something that is the exact opposite. This creates channels of communication with groups of people that are traditionally far from this group, such as the LGBTQ community.”
Population alteration
The main background for the space is nationalist ideology and xenophobia, but with differences in intensity.
“Some are the adherents of the great replacement theory, who believe that a structural socio-political change is taking place in Europe. The continent is changing population, values, religion and this is taking place not only because migrants are coming, but because there is a plan,” says Georgiadou. “This theory is not shared by all far-right politics.”
In Germany, AfD is talking about the immediate repatriation of asylum seekers. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is trying to follow a different kind of practice by making agreements on migrants with Albania. In France, the National Rally originally had a very strong anti-migration element, but now in the era of Le Pen it has narrowed it down and is focusing on the Muslim issue and Islam.
The parties have different positions depending on where they are in the political system, she says. “In Italy, where they are already in government, they have now adapted to more mainstream policies.”
In Greece, Kyriakos Velopoulos speaks clearly of an “existential threat” and adopts the view that “they want to make the country disappear,” while calling for “the immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants.”
Latinopoulou speaks of a plan to replace the population in Greece and calls for a return to “Orthodox tradition.”
Climate crisis?
The far-right parties also have different variations in their views regarding climate crisis, ranging from a complete denial of the phenomenon, which is thought to be in the imagination of some scientists, to opposition to green policies because they cost too much or happen too fast.
In Greece, this is one of the central issues on the agenda of parties to the right of New Democracy, without expressing an outright denial of the phenomenon.
Greek Solution has talked about this issue extensively, having repeatedly linked the wildfires in our country to the rise of the appearence of wind turbines.
“In our country, in our mountains, in the burnt areas not a single wind turbine or photovoltaic will be placed,” Velopoulos has said repeatedly.
Latinopoulou has also recently started to criticize what she calls “obsession with the green transition.”
“Was it the right wing [ideology] that idolized Greta Thunberg? Was it the right that imposed green energy at the expense of industry and destroyed the EU’s competitiveness? Or was it the socialist governments that have ruled the EU for 50 years?” she asked in the European Parliament last week.
Anti-systemicism
“The common denominator in all countries where the rise of the far-right is observed is the intense questioning of the political system and institutions, while the easy way in which disinformation and conspiracy theories are now circulated makes the situation even more dangerous and gloomy,” says About People’s Petros Ioannidis.
Nevertheless, they are not directed against every category of political elites; one often observes that the far-right party manifestos include positions positive for some scientists or many of the parties in the field (such as AfD) are not against entrepreneurship.
“It is common to see them expressing views against bankers, against the established politics, and political parties, anti-EU and its institutions,” says Georgiadou. “Populism has to do with positioning mainly against the political system. That is where the far-right makes the distinction between what it is and what everyone else is.”