BRUSSELS – Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) groundbreaking first victory in a German state election has reignited widespread concern over the growing momentum of far-right politics across the European continent. The breakthrough comes as millions of voters channel growing frustration over overlapping crises – from soaring cost of living and economic instability to heightened geopolitical tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and trade frictions with China and the United States – while mainstream political establishment struggle to craft cohesive, trusted responses.
While anti-immigration, pro-Russian populist far-right parties have steadily expanded their influence across European national and regional institutions in recent years, the landscape is far from one-sided: the movement has also suffered high-profile setbacks, and many leading parties have softened their once-radical policy stances to enter governing coalitions with moderate, mainstream factions.
In Sunday’s regional vote in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD fell just short of an absolute majority, a result that would have allowed it to form the first far-right state government in Germany since the end of the Nazi era. Even without a full majority, however, the party remains in a strong position to negotiate a coalition and claim the region’s top leadership post. News of the AfD’s win was quickly celebrated by far-right leaders from Portugal to Austria, who are already gearing up for a wave of national and regional elections across Europe in the coming months.
These upcoming contests will serve as a critical litmus test: will the AfD’s victory mark a permanent tipping point, unraveling the post-World War II anti-fascist consensus that has shaped European politics for 80 years? Or is it simply the latest example of a global pattern where angered, disillusioned voters oust sitting incumbent governments, regardless of ideology?
In recent years, far-right parties have already secured cabinet positions and influence in multiple national governments across the bloc. The most high-profile success came in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni – leader of a party with historic neo-fascist roots – became prime minister, making her the head of government of one of Europe’s largest and most politically influential nations. Though Meloni campaigned on an anti-EU populist platform, she has shifted sharply to the moderate end of the spectrum once in office, a move that has earned her broad praise across the continent and allowed her to lead Italy’s most stable government in decades. Even so, she now faces a challenge from an even more right-wing upstart party led by a retired military general.
Beyond Italy, far-right factions have joined ruling coalitions and taken control of key cabinet portfolios in Finland, Croatia, and Slovakia. In the 2024 European Parliament elections, populist anti-immigrant parties notched major gains across the 27-nation bloc, reflecting their growing grassroots support among European voters. In response, the center-right European People’s Party, the largest faction in the EU legislature, has increasingly aligned itself with far-right groups – a partnership that produced a controversial, historic overhaul of EU migration policy earlier this year, which drew fierce backlash from traditional center-left allies and global human rights organizations.
Sophia Russack, a fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, described the dynamic as a defining paradox for mainstream parties: “You partner up with them to prevent them from getting more powerful,” she explained.
For all their recent gains, the far-right populist movement has also suffered a series of notable defeats in recent months. For 16 years, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán stood as the ideological standard-bearer for European far-right politics and a key inspiration for populist movements across the globe. But in April, he suffered a landslide defeat at the hands of a former ally who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. In the Netherlands, iconic far-right leader Geert Wilders collapsed a governing coalition he helped co-found after his moderate allies refused to support his sweeping, hardline crackdown on immigration.
In the United Kingdom, the anti-immigration far-right Reform UK party has expanded its influence steadily in recent years, scoring a major upset as the top winner in May local elections. That result triggered internal panic within the Labour Party, leading to the replacement of former leader Keir Starmer and the appointment of Andy Burnham as Prime Minister. Though Reform UK holds just eight of 650 seats in the House of Commons, it has repeatedly led national opinion polls and dominated national political conversation around immigration policy. Led by veteran nationalist figure Nigel Farage, the party has found particular traction in regions that voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Even so, Reform UK has recently stumbled, losing multiple special parliamentary elections and facing growing scrutiny over its sources of funding.
Jeremy Cliffe, editorial director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that electoral setbacks for far-right parties send a mixed message: “These parties are mortal, they can be defeated, but when they’re in power, they’re not all chaotic and hopeless,” he explained.
All eyes now turn to 2025 national elections in France and Spain, which will shape the future of the far-right’s trajectory across the continent. Lisa Musiol, head of EU Affairs for the International Crisis Group, noted that the contests will either confirm the movement’s continued advance or mark a clear halt to its growth.
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – celebrated by the global left for his progressive stance on migration and his positions on the conflicts in Gaza and Iran – has faced widespread mass protests in response to the Ceuta border crisis. The far-right anti-immigrant Vox party, which currently holds just 32 of 350 seats in the national parliament, is widely projected to make major gains. It has already entered regional governing agreements with the center-right Popular Party, the parliament’s second-largest faction, in four autonomous regions. Following the AfD’s election win, Sanchez warned that the result should serve as a wake-up call for progressive forces across the continent: “a warning that the far-right threat is gaining ground in Europe and the world,” he said Monday, adding that “a progressive coalition government is more necessary than ever.”
In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen is currently the front-runner to replace deeply unpopular incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, has long held anti-EU and anti-immigration policy positions. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, whose center-right party is one of many competing against Le Pen, condemned the AfD’s German win as a victory for “the neo-Nazi, anti-European and pro-Putin far right.” “We urgently need to open our eyes to the despair that is propelling such ideas and such parties to power,” he wrote in an online post. “It can be done, but this is our last chance.”
This report includes contributions from Associated Press writers Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Giada Zampano in Rome, and Sylvia Hui in London.