: [POST-PUBLICATION CORRECTION: A previous version of the story mistakenly included a quote from Armida Van Rij on regional elections. The intended quote from Jeromin Zettelmeyer is now in place. ]
SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: NPR.
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PADDY HIRSCH, HOST:
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Paddy Hirsch.
DARIAN WOODS, HOST:
And I'm Darian Woods. Europe has been stunned by the recent success of far-right political parties, which made unexpected gains in recent European Parliament elections.
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UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: Well, in Europe, voters in 27 countries have elected more far-right members to the European Parliament.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Also there is going to be an increase in the share of the far right.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Far-right parties are leading in at least nine countries, including here in the Netherlands, where a far-right party won...
HIRSCH: OK, so the European Parliament does remain under the control of centrist parties. But with the French far-right National Rally party taking more than 30% of the vote in the first round of a national election in France, Europe is now bracing for a wave of victories by the far right in several upcoming national elections. And if the far right continues to take part at the national level, well, Europe's politics are going to change. But what about its economics?
WOODS: On today's show, we will take a look at what a swing to the right could mean for Europe's economy, and particularly the European stance on globalization. That's coming up after the break.
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WOODS: The far right has been making incremental gains in Europe for years. But it was the victory of the Brothers of Italy party in 2022, led by Giorgia Meloni, that revealed just how much political opinion in Europe has swung to the right.
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PRIME MINISTER GIORGIA MELONI: We live in a time in which everything we stand for is under attack. Our individual freedom is under attack.
HIRSCH: That's Meloni speaking to a conservative conference in the U.S. a few months before she took office. She's hinting at overbearing institutions that meddle in the affairs of individual states - the European Parliament, in other words.
WOODS: It's very on-brand.
HIRSCH: Yes, it is. And it plays well with voters in Europe right now, which is why it wasn't such a big surprise to see the gains made by the far right in last month's European Parliament elections. Jeromin Zettelmeyer is director of the Brussels think tank Bruegel. He says Europe's been struggling with a series of issues that will sound familiar to Americans.
JEROMIN ZETTELMEYER: It's a bit like in the United States. It's fear of declining living standards, in part driven by migration, in part driven by competition from other countries, China, widening income inequality - a very similar story except that here we didn't have it until more recently.
WOODS: There's one other factor, one that also resonates on this side of the Atlantic - globalization.
HIRSCH: Ah, the big G.
WOODS: Indeed, indeed.
HIRSCH: Or the OG, if you like.
WOODS: The OG big G. Armida van Rij is the head of the Euro Programme at Chatham House, a think tank based in London. She says the effects of globalization on individual Europeans are the subtext to almost every conversation the hard right is having.
ARMIDA VAN RIJ: There is a kind of bigger underbelly feeling, if you will, about the impacts of globalization and feeling - some people feeling like they are being left behind, like they have not benefited from this system over the past several decades, that their grievances have not been addressed appropriately by the establishment.
HIRSCH: Yeah. And this sense of grievance is energizing the far right and giving them plenty of campaign fodder to the point that far-right parties could win several national contests in Europe in the next year.
WOODS: This has obvious political and social implications for the EU because far-right parties do tend to agree broadly on immigration, on nationalism and on green and social issues. But when it comes to the economy and to globalization, Jeromin says that the far right is kind of a mixed bag.
ZETTELMEYER: It's a bit of a patchwork but broadly speaking, there are, on the economic platforms, maybe two or three common elements. There is a sense that the state is regulating too much. And then, you know, for the most part you have what I would call traditionally conservative views on pro market against state intervention.
HIRSCH: When it comes to the economy, these far-right groups differ wildly. On social spending, for example, the Italian and German right wing sounds quite austere - no more deficits. Meanwhile, in France, the National Rally party has been promising voters all sorts of goodies, quite expensive, despite the country's high deficit of about 5% of GDP.
WOODS: Armida says this disparity on the right exists because each individual European nation is subject to its own economic pressures and has its own unique needs. That means it's hard to predict exactly what a right-wing government might do if it took power.
HIRSCH: Yeah, what happens when the rhetorical rubber meets the road?
WOODS: But, you know, fortunately, we have a very good example in Italy.
VAN RIJ: If we look at Giorgia Meloni, when she came to power - before she came to power, she held certain policy positions. She was more pro-Russian, less pro-EU, less pro-NATO. She's completely changed that since coming to power because she has looked at the reality of Italy. She's looked at Italy's economic position, realized that Italy is heavily dependent on the EU's COVID recovery funds, and therefore decided to work within the system.
HIRSCH: Not such an anti-European after all, then. And she's not the only far-right leader whose politics have been moderated by a couple of factors. On the one hand, there's the understanding that spurning the EU could mean missing out on the lucrative benefits that come with membership, from COVID handouts to central bank support.
WOODS: And on the other hand, the markets are keeping a close watch. Jeromin notes that the leaders of the National Rally in France have recently been backing away from some of the expensive populist promises that they made to voters in the past.
ZETTELMEYER: As they get closer to power, the giveaways decline because - mainly disciplined by the markets - right? - by financial markets.
HIRSCH: And all of this means that if the far right does come to power in certain parts of the EU, the chances are that when it comes to the economy, not much will change. But Armida says that's partially because thanks to pressure from the far right on centrist governments, Europe has already swung to the right to some degree.
VAN RIJ: Even without these far-right parties being in power, whether that's at the EU level or at the domestic, at the national level, they're already getting their ideas into actual policy.
HIRSCH: Whoa, so the far right, even without taking over, is taking over.
WOODS: Yeah. But before we get ahead of ourselves here, it's important to note that while the right wing is having a moment in Europe right now, that's not to say that every nation on the other side of the pond is swinging that way.
HIRSCH: Yeah, I mean, let's take, for example, the U.K., which is not part of the European Union, of course. Well, it looks as though it could return a center-left party to power after 14 years of conservative rule. Spain, Portugal, Greece, the Scandinavian and Baltic states - these all remain bastions of centrist politics. In some cases, they even trend left. What could prove to be a much more significant event than a handful of far-right wins in Europe, Jeromin says, is the presidential election here in the United States.
ZETTELMEYER: I think if Mr. Trump returns to the White House, he will, as he already did, and some of the - his collaborators did, try and divide the EU. And he would do it specifically by playing to the right-wing parties that are sympathetic to the devolution of power from the EU to national governments.
WOODS: If Trump did effectively put globalization on the ballot in Europe, they'll be catnip for the far-right parties Jeromin says.
ZETTELMEYER: Then there's a question of how far will they play along, right? Will they understand that they still need the EU as a source of common strength, or will they go for that? If this is successful, our life is going to become much more complicated.
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HIRSCH: Complicated - that's an interesting word. I mean, we're talking about the possibility of countries leaving the EU here.
WOODS: An understatement.
HIRSCH: Destroying the integrity of one of America's biggest trading and strategic partners. Creating global havoc. I don't know, it sounds a wee bit more than complicated to me.
WOODS: Maybe EU is short for euphemism here.
HIRSCH: (Laughter).
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HIRSCH: This episode was produced by Cooper Katz McKim, with engineering by Patrick Murray. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon edits the show, and THE INDICATOR is a production of NPR.
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