Immigration and Economics Weaken Support for Europe’s Mainstream Political Parties
In countries all around Europe there has been a massive movement away from the conventional political parties that have consistently gained the most support in the past. This phenomena originally started after the Financial Crisis of 2008 and Eurozone crisis of 2011 but has recent gained even more speed due to a new and extremely divisive factor. This new factor is immigration and the recent migrant crisis. Immigration had been picking up in recent years from places like the Middle east and especially North Africa but it wasn’t until the Syrian Civil War displaced millions of citizens and many have been trying to fight there way into Europe that it has gained massive media attention.
An article from The Guardian has taken notice to this increasing trend of indecisive elections and unstable coalitions and notes election results from Slovakia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and Ireland. Although not all of these countries are in critical situations such as Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal, the overall trend is definitely noteworthy. An excellent example of a usually very stable Parliament is in Germany where, although Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats still hold their position and coalition, it is important to note that they lost votes to a wide variety of parties in the recent elections this past March.
The first and easiest question that one might ask is “Who are these more mainstream parties losing their support too?” The answer varies from country to country but a very general summary can be that the northern and Nordic countries such as Germany and Sweden are losing votes to right-wing anti-immigration parties while the Mediterranean countries are generally losing more votes to left-wing socialist parties. Examples include the left-wing Podemos party of Spain (pictured below)
And the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats from Sweden (supporters pictured below)
These vastly different political parties are becoming popular for very different reasons and with very different supporters. This leads to the question of “WHY is this situation happening in so many European countries?” The two main reasons are thought to be due to immigration and the poor economic situation due to the lack of a recovery in many countries after the recent economic crises. In countries like Germany, Sweden, and Denmark their economies are doing fairly well relative to the rest of Europe so the reason for their movement towards less conventional political parties can be seen as a reaction to the recent migrant crisis and immigration debate. Many citizens in these countries are not happy (justified or not) with the influx of immigrants from Middle-Eastern countries and do not believe the mainstream parties such as Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are doing enough to meet their demands. This leads them to parties like für Deutschland who are extremely right-wing (and often accused of being fascist and xenophobic) and are seen by many as the only parties willing to take a strong stance against immigration.
As for the countries like Spain and Portugal, their support for more extreme left-wing parties is often credited to the dire and seemingly hopeless economic situation that they have experienced in recent years. For example, in a country like Greece Alexis Tsipras’ left-wing Syriza party won the most recent election running on the policy of anti-austerity in response to the demands put on them by Germany and the EU which they believe crippled their economy.
The results of recent elections in many European countries show a startling (for the establishment) trend towards more extreme political parties. This trend leads to splintered legislations and flimsy coalitions in Parliament which put the country in an unstable position politically. This is leading to the rise of right-wing nativist parties in response to immigration issues on one side of the isle, and on the other side, socialist and anti-austerity left-wing groups such as Syriza and Podemos have made an astoundingly quick rise to power.
