A rich irony permeates the results of last week’s elections to the European Parliament and the presidential election in Ukraine that was held at the same time. The winner in Ukraine was Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire businessman. He is by no means anti-Russian, but the platform on which he cruised to power was distinctly pro-European Union (EU). He also vowed to crush the pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine — and began work straight after his election victory.
In some of the EU’s 28 member states, meanwhile, the big winners were right-wing populist parties that, despise the EU, could not care less about Ukraine and make no secret of their admiration for President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The Kremlin complains about the activities of extreme right-wingers in Ukraine. But some of Moscow’s loudest EU supporters come from precisely this end of the spectrum. Poroshenko was the only Ukrainian oligarch who played a prominent role in the February revolution in Kiev. This uprising not only toppled Viktor Yanukovich as president, it was notable for the EU flags that fluttered over the Maidan, symbolising Ukraine’s European aspirations. By contrast, the last pre-election public act of Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Dutch Freedom party, was to chop up the EU flag in front of the European Parliament building in Brussels.
The victories, or relatively strong performances, of right-wing populist parties in countries such as Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom mean that the next 751-member European Parliament will contain a vocal minority intent on paralysing the EU, speaking up for Moscow and denouncing Washington. Putin is doubtless delighted, but as a hardened realist he will know that EU foreign policy lies firmly in the hands of national governments rather than Brussels.
Still, the EU legislature’s approval is required for international trade accords and the populists can help derail a proposed EU-US free trade treaty. In general, the populists will exert their greatest impact by using the EU assembly as an instrument to amplify their message.
The warmth Europe’s populists feel for Russia coincides with the freezing of Moscow’s relations with the EU and US since Putin’s re-election in 2012. It is founded in part on a deep attachment to state sovereignty, which Putin is proud to uphold and which the populists accuse the EU of undermining.
There is also a conservative cultural bond between Putin’s Russia and many EU right-wing populists. They share a suspicion of Islam and immigration, for example, and they are usually hostile to gay rights, though Wilders is more open-minded on this point. Some EU populists will heartily endorse the Russian castigation of Europe as a cesspit of civilisation, whose degeneracy was exemplified by the victory in this month’s Eurovision Song Contest of Conchita Wurst, a bearded Austrian drag queen.
For European governments and the US, a larger concern is the manner in which the right-wing populists leapt to Moscow’s defence when Putin annexed Crimea. Right-wing populists who have expressed at least a warm understanding range from Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front, to Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party and Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s Freedom party. Le Pen and Farage caused the biggest shocks last week by topping the French and British polls with 25 per cent and 27.5 per cent of the votes, respectively. Strache took almost 20 per cent in Austria.
It is tempting to dismiss the right-wing populists as Moscow’s “useful idiots” — a term used in Soviet times to describe European leftists who always found an excuse to defend the Kremlin. However, sympathy for Moscow goes beyond the far right. Gerhard Schroder, the former German chancellor, celebrated his 70th birthday in St Petersburg last month at a party where Putin, an old friend, was the star guest. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi used to be chummy with Putin.
Europe’s mainstream politicians never hesitate to condemn the far right. But when it comes to Russia, there is more common ground than they wish to admit.
— Financial Times
