Right-of-center parties are surging across Europe – but it’s not your grandfather’s brand of buttoned-up, pro-market European conservatism that’s winning elections.
Today, the new European right is increasingly populist, “us-first” nationalistic, and unapologetically anti-elite.
The most recent example occurred last week in Poland, where populist firebrand Karol Nawrocki scored a dramatic upset of Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal, pro-European Union mayor of Warsaw. Running on a pro-Trump, “Poland First” platform and representing the opposition Law and Justice party, Nawrocki will be sworn in as the country’s new president in August.
Nawrocki’s margin of victory was small – he won with 50.9% of the vote compared to 49.1% for the favored Trzaskowski – but it is still almost guaranteed to complicate the pro-European Union, pro-Ukraine agenda of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk, a former president of the European Council, defeated the Law and Justice candidate to come to power in 2023, despite charges that he was taking orders from elite forces in Berlin.
“I don’t know who your grandfathers were, but I know one thing: You are a German agent, just a German agent,” a co-founder of the Law and Justice party said to Tusk at the time.
In Poland, the president (soon to be Nawrocki) is the head of state who leads foreign policy and has the power to veto laws, while the prime minister (Tusk) is the head of government who is responsible for internal policies.
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Author: Ray Hilbrich
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