Mainstream Fringes or Fringe Mainstream? An Assessment of Radical Right (Re)Alignments in the European Parliament after the 2014 and 2019 Elections

Abstract

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections witnessed an unprecedented wave of radical right parties (RRPs) not only enter the EP, but even outperform the centre-right and centre-left parties in several Member States (MSs). With few exceptions, the 2019 EP elections reconfirmed this state of affairs, although this time around Liberal and Green parties also made inroads into the EP. Despite these results, the performance of the RRPs tends to be taken with a grain of salt since EP elections are generally considered Second Order Elections (SOEs). Yet the electoral consolidation witnessed by these parties in various Member States indicates that their performance is more than a fluke and that therefore it should not be treated as an outlier that is going to be course-corrected by the next election cycle. The 2019 EP election showed that this was not the case. In this regard, this paper examines the notion of radical right mainstreaming by tracking how, at the EU level, RRPs vacillate between pursuing forms of respectable cohabitation in EP groups such as the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) or, as was the case in 2019, they are embracing policy congruent schemes (see the Identity and Democracy Group).