By Athena Papakosta

The extreme right is again steadily on the rise in Europe. It is a bad deja vu that many believed we had now left behind. On the contrary, in Geria Epirus more and more voters are turning to the extreme right.

Just 24 hours ago, the first far-right regional governor was elected in Thuringia, Germany, awakening wild memories of the past in the country.

Robert Zesselmann was elected with the far-right party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) facing Jürgen Keper, from the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) who was supported by all the other parties, including the German Left.

The far-right candidate collected 52.8% of the vote and his opponent 47.2%, bringing the AfD to the top position in an election for the first time since its founding ten years ago. At the same time, in the country that remains the strongest economy in the Eurozone, if polls were held today the far right could finish in second place – together with or displacing the Social Democrats (SPD).

Far-right, xenophobic with anti-Islamic rhetoric, anti-Semitism and national conservatism hits the top in polls in eastern Germany. He is investing in fear and taking advantage of the internal split in the German government with his youth, meanwhile, being labeled by Germany’s Constitutional Protection Agency as an extremist group.

And while Germany is currently at a critical crossroads, Italy since last October has ushered in the far-right “Georgia Meloni era” in power by getting the first far-right government since World War II.

With a political origin, the darkness of neo-fascism, the Melon and “Brothers of Italy” Party have formed a government with allies the populist party founded by Silvio Berlusconi “Forza Italia” and the far-right League of Matteo Salvini.

Meloni plays hard ball in immigration inside and outside Italy. She declares her country in a state of emergency by imposing harsh measures to manage arrivals, while in Europe she wins the expansion of her powers to deport asylum seekers, convincing not only the center-right but also the centrists with Germany that expressed objections to the violation of human rights finally back off.

With the European elections just a year away, the alarm bell is also ringing in the fourth economy of the euro zone, Spain, which is headed to the polls on July 23.

THE Pedro Sanchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the country’s current prime minister saw his popularity, his party and its main governing partner, the leftist Podemos, sink in the country’s municipal and regional elections at the end of May. At the same time, the center-right People’s Party (PP) of Alberto Núñez Feijo and again the far-right, ultra-nationalist VOX of Santiago Abascal registered an increase.

In particular, VOX has not stopped being on an upward trajectory. It is about the nostalgics of Franco. Some of the central points of their ideology concern the recovery of national sovereignty vis-à-vis the European Union, the fight against the green transition, the reduction of taxation and MPs, the questioning of gender-based violence by calling for the abolition of the Ministry of Equality and the deportation of all illegals immigrants but also legal ones who have been convicted of crimes.

In the 2019 polls, the said party emerged as Spain’s third parliamentary force with a percentage of 15.1%. Today, he is seeking a government collaboration with the People’s Party, which is fighting for first place with VOX, according to the polls, it is consistently third.

Further north in Europe and Finland where the far-right has been in parliament for two decades, Riika Pura’s Eurosceptic, anti-immigration “Party of Finns” managed to come in second in last April’s election with the largest electoral result in its history. Today, he participates in the government of the country and taking over seven ministries, including the Ministry of the Interior, he has already started working on the adoption of a stricter immigration policy.

In the neighbor’s Swedena country that has been synonymous with equal opportunities, last September there was a political earthquake.

For the first time, the country’s traditional right decided to form a government, having secured the parliamentary support of the extreme right, specifically Jimmy Akesson’s “Sweden Democrats” party, which emerged as the second largest party in last September’s elections, receiving 20% ​​of the vote. It is a party with neo-Nazi roots, which favors hard-line anti-immigration policies and has seen steady growth over the past decade.

At the same time the France lives with the far-right National Alarm of Marine Le Pen and 27-year-old Jordan Bardela, which since last June is the opposition party with the most seats in the French parliament, while in Poland and Hungary extreme conservative parties are in power.

How did we get here?

Analysts are charting the slide and are led to the safe conclusion that the reasons vary from country to country with immigration, the cost of living crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Euroscepticism leading the race of responsible causes of this ongoing extreme right turn.

Moreover, experts simultaneously link the rise of the extreme right with the fact that more and more citizens have less trust in parties and institutions, the normalization of their discourse and policies, and the failure of the Left to properly turn the wheel against its cuts welfare state and against jobs with crumbs for wages.

Others highlight the fact that all political parties did not stand firm, thus failing to offer an alternative vision for the future, often imitating the rhetoric and policies of the populists who are a threat to democracy.

Our country now counts, for the first time in post-colonial history, not one but three extreme right-wing parties in the Greek parliament: It is the Spartan party supported by the convicted criminal organization Golden Dawn, Ilias Kasidiaris, and the Hellenic Solution of Kyriakos Velopoulos , an expression of the extreme right with a… tie and the Niki party which promotes orthodoxy and also rallies “Macedonian fighters”, anti-vaccinators and the anti-abortion movement. All three of these far-right parties collected 12.77% and receive 34 seats in total.

Racism, nationalism and xenophobia. Offer and demand. Both in Greece and in Europe. Until when;