How the EU is contributing to the rise of Europe’s far right.
Supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party during the final campaign rally on the eve of state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on September 5, 2026 in Magdeburg, Germany.(Jens Schlueter / Getty Images)
A far-right party in control of Germany? Alternative für Deutschland’s stunning success in last Sunday’s election brought the previously unthinkable closer to reality, leaving mainstream politicians asking: How could this be happening in the European Union?
The answer is an unpleasant one. Indeed, it may be time to consider that the far-right surge across Europe is happening not despite but at least partially because of the EU. The alliance isn’t holding back fascism; on the contrary, it’s buoying the far right from Poland to Portugal.
The reaction of two senior EU leaders to the AfD’s victory indicates the problem. “Only idiots or traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the far-right AfD in Germany,” sneered Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
It’s a bit like Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” remark. You can taste the sludge of disdain toward the rabble from the prime minister tasked with understanding and protecting them.
There’s no available poll on the AfD’s popularity in Poland, but a 2025 survey found a third of the 2.2 million Poles who live in Germany preferred the far-right party. How might they feel to learn they’re “idiots or traitors”?
Then there’s Germany’s Friedrich Merz, who, while admitting, “We are all deeply shocked. We did not expect it to turn out this way,” ruled out stepping down as chancellor, proclaiming, “Giving up is not an option for me.”
The sheer hubris of a man who has presided over the real possibility that Germany will see its first far-right party rule since the Third Reich—and somehow makes it about himself.
Fascism spreads when the establishment—the people who are supposed to be the adults in the room—are unable to address the needs of the nation; when they are, in fact, unable to comprehend their own blindness. Over the years, as the Tusks and Merzes preached about a Europe united against Russia and the need to adhere to a nebulous pan-European identity, the fascists began to sound like the sensible ones.
The reality is that much of Europe’s core mindset doesn’t extend beyond the horizon. When asked, “Who are you?,” an American will say, “I’m American.” An Italian will tell you what city he’s from; an ambitiously cosmopolitan Italian might tell you the region. Italians won’t even use the same playing cards as the town down the road (there are 16 regional decks in Italy)—and you expect them to identify as citizens of Europe, whatever that even means?
And yet for the past decade or so, European technocrats have been demanding that Italians and Hungarians, Spaniards and Poles sacrifice kitchen-table concerns and embrace unchecked migration and anti-Russia sanctions—all in the name of the EU.
The idea that every EU nation must share responsibility for taking in migrants failed as soon as it was announced. Member states like Poland, Hungary, and Czechia simply closed their borders and refused to comply, daring the EU to do something about it. The only repercussion was a toothless verdict from the European Court of Justice informing these countries that they broke EU law.
With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.
As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
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All this belt-tightening is being asked in order to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. But the shine from Ukraine wore off years ago; the stories coming out of Kyiv are of endless corruption scandals from Volodymyr Zelensky’s inner circle, seasoned with videos of press gangs kidnapping Ukrainian men off the streets to send them to the front.
For Europe’s ultranationalists, Brussels’s demands to accept migrants, hold the line against Russia, and continue to funnel money to Zelensky are manna from heaven. Is it any wonder far-right demagogues have successfully constructed the narrative that it is they, and not EU technocrats, who care for their people? Is it any wonder the ultranationalists could position themselves as the only politicians in the country who aren’t chumps?
Unfortunately, the response from EU leaders all too often mirrors that of Tusk and Merz—disdain and inability to admit failure. The arrogance has been especially pervasive when discussing former East German states, the AfD’s stronghold. Article after article insists that the mentality of former East Germans has been so corrupted by decades of Soviet rule that they can’t understand European values. Servile love of dictatorship is in their soil, we’re told. It’s in their DNA.
Then there’s the colossal damage from the push by Brussels to maintain sanctions on Moscow. Sanctions are a two-way street, and the counter-sanctions imposed by the Kremlin have wreaked havoc on farmers across the continent as well as on German industry.
What gets mentioned less often is that wages in the former East Germany remain 18 percent lower than in the former West Germany. The simplest explanation for the AfD’s popularity may be that the people of the region crave neither totalitarianism nor the pablum of European values but food on their table. There’s a Greek-tragedy aspect to this: While EU leaders invoke lofty ideals, the fascists come off as the compassionate ones. The best way for the Tusk and Merz group to help stop the growth of Europe’s far right is by admitting failure and getting out of the way, leaving room for the rise of real alternatives to ultranationalism. Humility is the value Europe could use right about now.
Lev GolinkinLev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time, among other outlets.