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For years now, hard right, anti-immigrant, and in some cases overtly fascist political parties have been on the march in Europe, veering from one electoral triumph to the next. When large numbers of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war began arriving in Europe in 2015, right populist groupings seized on the humanitarian crisis to cultivate a narrative that the whole continent would inevitably fall to the hard right.

An alliance of hard right parties have indeed been gaining seats and influence in the European parliament over the past decade. Hard right groups, broken into three blocs — European Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe, and Europe of Sovereign Nations — now control roughly a quarter of the parliamentary seats. And in a range of countries, including Austria, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and elsewhere, hard right leaders have either joined governing coalitions or achieved outright political power. If this trend continues, some of the continent’s largest economies and militaries — Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. — may all be controlled by governments with a hard right component by the end of the decade.

Of all these countries, it is Germany that could fall hardest, and with the most destructive consequences for the continent. The neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling ahead of both the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats — which have both headed ineffectual coalition governments in the past decade. By decade’s end, AfD leaders could be in key roles in government, wielding the political clout to make real their campaign pledges to force huge numbers of immigrants to “remigrate” away from Germany, and reorienting much of Europe toward a neo-fascist vision of the continent.

Even though the AfD lost recent state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate to the CDU, it more than doubled its vote share, coming in with nearly 20 percent, marking the first time it has seen such large support in one of the wealthier western states in Germany. As the mainstream parties continue to struggle, it’s not at all clear that the much-vaunted post-World War II “firewall,” in which a combination of tactical voting and alliances between center right and social democratic parties has succeeded in keeping fascist parties out of power, will continue to hold over the coming years.

The neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling ahead of both the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats

The neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling ahead of both the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats

Yet in reality, the continental picture is not nearly so monolithic. While the hard right is growing in some countries and clearly remains a formidable electoral threat, progressive coalitions are starting to find their sea legs and push back. Over the past year, they have been buoyed by the hard right’s entanglement with the evermore unpopular Donald Trump and the public’s growing distaste for the U.S. president’s efforts to impose his ideology on Europeans, who associate it with the dark era of 1930s and 1940s fascism. JD Vance’s hectoring speech to the Munich Security conference in early 2025, Trump and Vance’s ambushing of Ukrainian Prime Minister Zelenskyy in the White House in February 2025, and U.S. territorial ambitions in Greenland — a territory that is part of the NATO member Denmark — have put the hard right on the defensive. It has attempted to push its ideological agenda, especially on immigration, without coming across as lackeys to a U.S. president who is historically unpopular in Europe. That has proven to be a difficult tightrope to walk.

Europe Offers Little Hope for People in........

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