Geert Wilders’s Dutch election win is a headache for

Europe
economist.com/europe/2023/11/25/geert-wilderss-dutch-election-win-is-a-headache-for-europe

The Economist

Nov 25th 2023 | BRUSSELS

SINCE GEERT WILDERS’S surprise triumph in the Dutch election on November 22nd,
plaudits have poured in from across Europe—but overwhelmingly from his political family
on the hard right of the spectrum. Marine Le Pen of France and Viktor Orban of Hungary
are thrilled; but not many others relish the prospect of working with the anti-immigrant
firebrand. Mr Wilders presents a political headache for the EU, a club used to moving
forward by helping centrists of the left and right politely thrash out their differences. But in
many ways the populists are melding the consensus rather than threatening to overthrow
it.

A generation ago, merely including the hard right in a ruling coalition was enough to result
in ostracism, as Austria discovered when its centre-right allied with the xenophobic
Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in 2000. No longer. The idea of a “cordon sanitaire”—
centrist parties essentially pretending populist foes don’t exist when it comes to forming
coalitions—is breached routinely. In the Netherlands it may prove all but impossible to
cobble together a coalition without the 37 seats (out of 150) of the Party for Freedom, the
party Mr Wilders leads.

Whether the bouffant-haired veteran MP will nab the premiership is still very much an
open question. But if he does, it will not be the first time a populist has sat at the table of
the European Council, the EU’s top decision-making body. Hungary, Italy and Poland (the
last probably not for much longer, given the results of October’s election) are all run by
the hard right, and were joined recently by a lefty populist in Slovakia. Such electoral
outcomes were once a prompt for pan-continental pearl-clutching and recrimination. Now
they have become just about commonplace.

The chances are of further success for the hard right in forthcoming polls. The FPÖ is
backed by 30% of Austrian voters, comfortably beating its rivals of the left and right ahead
of elections next year. The Alternative for Germany is in second place at 21%, far ahead
of any of the parties in the country’s existing three-way coalition, with important state
elections due next year. Polls in Belgium show that one populist party is leading the pack
and the other is joint second. Having narrowly come top in France’s election to the
European Parliament in 2019, Ms Le Pen’s National Rally party now looks as though it
will trounce Emmanuel Macron’s allies come the next such ballot in June. Ms Le Pen
(pictured with Mr Wilders in 2019), is all but assured another slot in the French
presidential run-off in 2027.

Would a Wilders administration tip the EU scale in favour of populist policies? In one
important way, it already has. Restricting migration is the hard right’s clarion call. But
centrist parties on both right and left have already shifted towards tougher policies in
many countries, including the Netherlands. Germany took in over 1m migrants in 2015-
16; these days its approach is much less welcoming. The contrast between the centre
and the populists has eroded: in Denmark, it is a centre-left government that has pushed
through tough migration measures (like Britain, it wants to process asylum-seekers in
Rwanda), not some post-fascist outfit.

Beyond that, it seems doubtful that those on the political fringes will have much impact at
EU level. For one, while parties of the hard right are sometimes lumped together as a
single entity, in truth they often disagree. Mr Orban frequently takes a pro-Kremlin stance
in EU meetings, for example holding up sanctions against Russia over its invasion of
Ukraine. His supposed ally Giorgia Meloni in Italy staunchly backs Ukraine, alongside
most other EU countries.

This makes coherent alliances to take on the dominant centrists hard. Populists are often
too busy picking fights with Brussels rather than working to change the EU’s direction. (Mr
Wilders also wants a referendum on leaving the EU, for which there is little support in the
Netherlands; the chances of his getting a proposal to hold one through parliament seem
remote.) At the European Parliament, hard-right MEPs are split between two rival parties,
ranging from the somewhat Eurosceptic to the openly xenophobic. No major EU job has
ever gone to anyone from outside the political centre.

And politicians with populist promises on the campaign trail have a tendency to moderate
once in office, especially if they have to share power. Dutch coalition programmes are
crafted over many months, leaving plenty of opportunities for centrists to force
compromise. Ms Meloni was herself a firebrand who railed against the EU as a candidate;
plenty were panicked when this once-avowed fan of Mussolini became prime minister a
year ago. In fact she has surprised her European partners by hewing to the political
centre on most issues (though not on social matters such as gay rights). Mr Wilders
himself toned down his Islam-bashing as the vote neared, though critics argue that this
was only cosmetic. Even if he makes it to the prime minister’s office, he is likely to be at
the head of a minority government with partners who will want to restrain his worst urges.

“Even if Wilders ends up as prime minister, the thing about Dutch politicians is more that
they are Dutch than they are of any political party,” says one EU official, perhaps evincing
a degree of wishful thinking; Mr Wilders seems a different Dutch politician from any of his
predecessors. Still, on many dossiers, a populist premier from the Netherlands would
share the policies of his predecessor, Mark Rutte. It is the Dutch view, whether of Mr
Rutte or Mr Wilders, that the EU should not expect more funding from member states.
Both are broadly sceptical of enlargement. Their views on migration are hardly poles
apart: Mr Rutte was keen on an EU gambit to pay Tunisia to ensure fewer boats full of
aspiring refugees departed for European shores, going as far as accompanying Ms
Meloni to unveil the deal in Tunis in July.

Perhaps the main concern in Europe is that the Dutch result is a signal. Voters there are
seen as electoral trendsetters. The Netherlands was among the first countries to see its
political scene fragment away from “big tent” centrist parties of the left and right, starting
in the 1980s. Dutch populists became a fixture of public life before that happened in most
other countries. Plenty will worry that Mr Wilders’s victory is an omen, with more to come.
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