Thread: Europe’s Populist Politicians Tap Into Deep-Seated Frustration

Growing numbers of voters are supporting populist political parties that oppose accepting refugees and other migrants and are skeptical of European integration

By Anton Troianovski | Photographs by Phil Moore for The Wall Street Journal

VIENNA—Supporters turned out Saturday for a barbecue hosted by the Freedom Party of Austria, a populist, anti-immigrant group that polls say could win the country’s presidency this weekend.

“Things just aren’t how they used to be,” said Celine Danecek, a party volunteer handing out fliers, cigarette lighters and headphones. “It feels strange to say this as a 17-year-old.”

Since reaching voting age last year, Ms. Danecek has cast her ballot for a party asserting that the policies of the postwar political establishment—on immigration, trade and European integration—go against the interests of regular people and urgently need to be reversed.

After the migrant crisis erupted last summer, a throng of European voters have delivered a series of electoral successes to populist parties offering such messages. From Denmark to France, the parties’ gains have heightened the sense of crisis in the European Union.

In an echo of Donald Trump ’s rise in the U.S., an increasing number of Europeans are rejecting basic principles shared by the center-left and center-right. These voters want things few mainstream parties offer: a tougher line on immigrants, weaker or no EU ties and, often, closer links with Russia. They have no confidence in ruling elites they see as aloof, corrupt and disconnected from their lives.

For decades, the major Continental European parties have held a strong consensus about the merits of European integration. That includes open borders, tariff-free trade across these borders and a common currency.
Not all ordinary Europeans shared this view. Many have expressed their reservations, as referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and elsewhere have shown.

But the firmness of the mainstream parties’ commitment to European integration has helped drive the dissent to fringe parties. It has allowed nationalists and populists to win over people disenchanted with the mainstream, pro-EU consensus, to such an extent that euroskeptic language is creeping into major parties, too, in some places as they seek to stop voters from moving away.

The Wall Street Journal explored Europe’s populist phenomenon on the ground, from eastern Germany’s rust belt and the working-class outskirts of Vienna to industrial Poland and rural Slovakia. What emerged were diverse portraits of voters united by rejection of the postwar creed that the Continent’s integration was a necessary condition of prosperity and peace.

The voters speak of sovereignty lost to Washington, Wall Street or Berlin. They cite news from Facebook pages and YouTube channels, dismissing traditional news media as agents of government and big business. They voice fears of crime and cultural change brought by Europe’s refugee influx. And many, fuming at the political class, say they simply want change.

This populist wave is particularly striking in Central Europe, where the political mainstream had long seen European integration as the way to heal the wounds of Nazism and communism.

This weekend in Austria, the Freedom Party is within striking distance of achieving a new milestone: electing a head of state. Its candidate, Norbert Hofer, carries a slight lead in the polls going into Sunday’s runoff election for the largely symbolic post of president.

Just a few miles down the Danube from Vienna, in Slovakia, a party that endorses the country’s World War II collaboration with the Nazis recently rode outrage over immigration to its first seats in parliament.

In Poland, a rocker-turned-activist’s electoral success has scrambled party dynamics, drawing nationalists and others unhappy with the status quo into his new movement.

And in Germany, an upstart anti-immigrant party this spring cemented its status as the country’s most successful right-wing populist movement since World War II.

“We have lost our identity,” said Grazyna Kupka, a 46-year-old Pole who lives on disability benefits. “We feel like slaves.”

“Germany is a colony of the U.S.,” said Todor Gribnev, a 66-year-old innkeeper and clarinetist in Germany. “Germany is governed by the U.S., just as the European Union is the long arm of the U.S.”

“What is called democracy here—that isn’t democracy,” said Milan Capák, a 46-year-old wedding entertainer and small-town councilman in Slovakia. “You cannot say what you want.”

“I want to get rid of my fear,” said Hermine Löffler, a 57-year-old retired hospitality worker in Austria.

Some of Central Europe’s populist movements are old, such as Austria’s Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s. Some are new, like the movement led by Polish rock star Pawel Kukiz, whose legions of fans propelled his surprise rise in politics last year. All got political mileage out of a refugee crisis many thought confirmed Germany’s dominance of the EU.

“German business has replaced German tanks,” Mr. Kukiz said in an interview this week in his new branch office in the southwest Poland city of Gliwice, once part of the German Empire.

The rise of these groups has pressed mainstream politicians to respond, including by accepting some of their demands.

In Austria, the centrist government this winter reversed its initial support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s welcoming refugee policy after the Freedom Party shot up in the polls. In Poland and Slovakia, governments already pushing back against her effort to get other countries to take in refugees have come under further domestic pressure. And in Berlin, amid alarm about the electoral success of the three-year-old Alternative for Germany party, Ms. Merkel has sought to stem the inflow of migrants even as she continues to speak for open borders.

Crises that range from eurozone bailouts to fears of terrorism have weakened the European establishment, making the rise of today’s version of populism more potent than previous iterations, analysts say.

“What has changed radically is the wider international context,” said Dominika Kasprowicz, a political scientist at Poland’s Pedagogical University of Krakow. “The strategy to just adapt and agree on what has been proposed by the populist right can be the easiest way out—an emergency exit for the mainstream parties.”

Austria

The right-wing Freedom Party’s presidential candidate, Norbert Hofer, won 35% in first-round elections on April 24 and leads the polls ahead of Sunday’s runoff. In one sign of the electorate’s anti-establishment mood, Mr. Hofer easily carried Simmering, a working-class section of Vienna that had long voted center-left.


Celine Danecek, 17 High school student “People had the feeling that their fears were being ignored by the politicians… The Freedom Party said from the very beginning: there are too many [migrants] coming.”



Brigitte Hoschek, 58Pensioner “On the playground, the Austrians have almost no room anymore because there are only Turkish children there. The Austrians are being pushed ever more to the side.”


Hermine Löffler, 57 Retired hospitality worker “I want to get rid of my fear.’”

Among the factors, political scientists say, is a changing view of history. In Germany and Austria, the growing distance from the Nazi era is blunting the electorate’s knee-jerk rejection of xenophobic or nationalist rhetoric. In Poland and Slovakia, a receding memory of the Communist past has helped take some of the shine off Western-style democracy. In all four countries, according to exit polls in recent elections, young people were more likely than the mean to vote for populist candidates.

“They do not have this feeling of democracy, which is absolutely crucial for the older generation,” said Grigorij Meseznikov, president of Slovakia’s Institute for Public Affairs, a liberal-leaning think tank in Bratislava. “They did not participate in either the fight against the Communist regime or the struggle for democracy.”

Ms. Danecek, the teenage Freedom Party volunteer at the Vienna barbecue, said the Nazi past no longer pushed her generation away from right-wing parties. “We young people know this only out of the history books, and we are thus more open for this kind of party,” she said. “We in the young generation were not there—but we know how terrible it was—and we simply believe that this cannot happen a second time.”





The anti-immigrant Freedom Party of Austria held a barbecue for voters in Vienna last weekend. A poster for Norbert Hofer, its candidate in Sunday’s presidential election was on display in Vienna.

She said frustration with immigration pushed her to embrace the Freedom Party. It used to be, she said, that she felt a sense of community among her Austrian neighbors in the city’s working-class outskirts. Now there are many immigrants, and “one kind of just lives next to one another.”

The Freedom Party, with its anti-immigrant rhetoric and early ties to former Nazis, was once ostracized in Austrian politics. But Mr. Hofer’s 35% support in first-round presidential elections last month, more than triple what either of two establishment parties won, signaled its arrival.

“Stand up for Austria. Your homeland needs you now,” Mr. Hofer’s campaign posters blare. Opposing free trade as well as immigration, he drew especially strong support from the young and middle-aged in April.





In neighboring Slovakia in March, the People’s Party-Our Slovakia, which venerates the Slovak Nazi satellite state that deported tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths during World War II, won 8% of the national vote and its first seats in parliament. The party has described Slovakia’s leader at the time, Jozef Tiso, as a heroic defender of national sovereignty.

The People’s Party’s leader, Marian Kotleba, initially gained notice for his tough line against the Roma, or Gypsies. This year he ran on a broader platform that took on refugees, the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a political establishment he said steals from regular Slovaks. Mr. Kotleba didn’t respond to an interview request.

One of his voters, Mr. Capák, lives in a one-story house off a one-lane road on the outskirts of the town of Rožňava. The former teacher won a spot on the city council in 2014 after he attained local prominence for voluntarily fixing potholes. He plays musical gigs at weddings and drives newlyweds in a white horse-drawn carriage parked in his yard.

Slovakia

People’s Party-Our Slovakia, which wants a tough line against the Roma minority and venerates the Slovak Nazi satellite state of World War II, won a surprising 8% of the national vote in March and its first seats in parliament.


Milan Capák, 46 Town councilman, entertainer “Why are we accepting refugees at a time when our young people are leaving the country looking for work?”

Mr. Capák said he voted center-left and Communist in the past and grew frustrated with a political establishment he felt ignored problems with the economy, refugees and the Roma. Before the March election, he saw Mr. Kotleba’s pitch on a billboard—“We’ll bring order to the tie-wearing thieves and the parasites in the Roma settlements”—and became a convert.

Mr. Capák found Mr. Kotleba’s support of the pro-Nazi Slovak state distasteful enough to prevent him from joining the party, but it didn’t turn him off as a voter. He said the government needed to get tougher on keeping out Middle Eastern refugees, who he said would bring regressive views of women and take Slovak jobs. Under a Brussels plan adopted last year, the country of 5.4 million is supposed to take in about 1,500 people.

“Why are we accepting refugees at a time when our young people are leaving the country looking for work?” Mr. Capák asked.







Political populism is surging in Central Europe, some of it focused on immigration and Roma settlements, in areas such as Austria, Slovakia and Poland.

In Poland, Ms. Merkel’s push for other EU countries to accept refugees has fired resentment of German power. Mr. Kukiz, the Red-Bull-swigging rocker turned populist leader, has seized on that sentiment, calling for a Polish referendum on taking in refugees. After finishing third in a presidential election a year ago with 21%, he formed a political group that placed third in fall parliamentary elections with 9%.

“I never dreamed of a political career. It’s a thousand times more pleasant to be a musician,” Mr. Kukiz, in a black T-shirt picturing anti-Communist Polish resistance soldiers, told a crowd of over 100 at a town-hall meeting in Gliwice on Monday. “But there are days bordering on euphoria when I know there’s a point in it. When I see you, I see a point in this fight.”

Ms. Kupka, the Polish woman on disability, said her vote for Mr. Kukiz last year was her first in a quarter-century of Polish democracy.

“He’s genuine,” she said. “I never trust politicians. What he says is true.”

Poland

Pawel Kukiz, a rock star turned populist activist, came in third in last May’s presidential elections and formed a political group that won seats in parliament in October. He did best in parts of Silesia in southern Poland, including the city of Gliwice.


Adam Wilk, 39 Small-business owner "I'm 100% convinced that we'll get the worse refugees and the Germans will get the better ones."


Grazyna Kupka, 46 On disability benefits “He’s genuine...I never trust politicians. What he says is true.”

Echoing many populist-leaning voters elsewhere in Europe, Ms. Kupka said she favored less-confrontational ties with Russia and said reports about a military threat from Moscow amounted to government propaganda.

A five-hour drive to the west, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the three-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 24% in state parliamentary elections in March, surprising many.

While Kukiz voters in Poland complain of Berlin’s dominance, some German voters, such as the innkeeper Mr. Gribnev, say their country in fact lacks sovereignty, because it is hostage to the EU and its U.S. alliance.

Germany

The three-year-old Alternative for Germany won seats in three state legislatures in March, cementing its status as the country’s most successful right-wing populist party since World War II. It did best in Saxony-Anhalt, a former East German state in which it won 24% of the vote.


Peter Appelt, 56 Train-factory worker “The other parties need to be taught a lesson. They’ve become so arrogant. One must listen to the people once in a while.” PHOTO: ANTON TROIANOVSKI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


Todor Gribnev, 66 Innkeeper “Germany is a colony of the U.S. Germany is governed by the U.S., just as the European Union is the long arm of the U.S.” PHOTO: ANTON TROIANOVSKI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Peter Appelt, 56, said he takes the train five hours to Munich each week to work at a high-speed-train factory because jobs are lacking in his home region of Saxony-Anhalt. The migrant influx, he said, could make things even worse.

“The other parties need to be taught a lesson,” said Mr. Appelt, who used to vote for the center-left Social Democrats. “They’ve become so arrogant. One must listen to the people once in a while.”

The AfD’s showing in Saxony-Anhalt shook the political establishment so deeply that its conservative state prime minister, Reiner Haseloff, had to ally with the environmentalist Greens and center-left Social Democrats to form a governing coalition.


André Poggenburg, chairman of the Alternative for Germany party in Saxony-Anhalt state, said, ‘The idea of the EU was perhaps not the worst
thing. The question is, what has it become in practice?’ PHOTO: ANTON TROIANOVSKI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Initially focused on getting Germany out of the euro, the AfD has swung to an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform as it looks to win its first seats in national parliament in elections next year.

“The idea of the EU was perhaps not the worst thing. The question is, what has it become in practice?” said André Poggenburg, the AfD chairman in Saxony-Anhalt. “Is it really something that pacifies? Or is it
something that drives apart?”

Europe’s Populist Politicians Tap Into Deep-Seated Frustration

In Defense of Denmark

With right-wing parties on the rise in Sweden and Germany, the restrictive immigration policies of cold-hearted Copenhagen are beginning to look awfully sensible.

BY JAMES KIRCHICK MAY 20, 2016

One of the many disastrous consequences of putting the Marxist Obama in the White House is that Europeans think America in general wants the destruction of national sovereignty throughout Europe. They have heard Obama pushing to save the European Union. They think crony capitalists are a product of America’s Wall Street and that Obama reflects the popular will of the American people.

We have news that Geert Wilders head of the Dutch Freedom Party and a Trump supporter will speak at the GOP convention. Wilders is famous for his opposition to the Muslim invasion of Europe. His support for Trump, especially if he publicly speaks at the GOP convention should do much to neutralize the understandable hostility to America by European nationalists.

Europe inevitably follows America’s lead. Controlling our borders at home and a strong nationalist like Trump as President would greatly assists the Nationalist in Europe to become the dominant political force and preserve the people and culture of Europe even as we do the same for ourselves.

Patriots make your voices heard. Contact the GOP and the Trump campaign and make sure that Geert Wilders does in fact speak at the GOP convention. This is no small matter. Make sure there is no change of plans to have Wilders make a speech.

You just can't become a private millionaires unless you tag yourself as a Socialist otherwise be prepare to go through what nobody want to go through