With less than a month until the elections for the European Parliament, research shows that more than 400 million citizens of the European Union, from 27 member states, will bring significant growth to the right-wing parties with their votes.
Ahead of the elections, which will be held in all states between June 6 and 9, polls show that parties belonging to the right and left of the center and the Green group will experience a drop in the number of votes, but that the traditional parties will retain their majority, albeit with weaker results compared to previous voting cycles.
What could the rise of the right mean?
In the current outgoing composition of the European Parliament, the right has 128 parliamentary seats out of a total of 705. In the next composition, according to polls, they could win almost a quarter of all mandates.
However, according to an expert from the German Marshall Fund, this does not necessarily mean that the growth of these currents will imply the growth of pro-Russian sentiments in the European Parliament.
As an example, he mentions Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who, according to him, has strong anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian sentiments. Then the French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who, as he points out, was financed by Russia, is now leaning more and more towards Ukraine.
"I would be cautious in assuming that the future European Parliament, even if the extreme right wins seats, will be significantly more pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian than the current parliament. I believe that will not be the case," says Kirkegaard.
In 2014, Marine Le Pen took out a loan from the first Czech-Russian bank, worth 11 million euros. The shadow of this loan has long loomed over this far-right party, and Le Pen has been heavily criticized for her relations with Russia. In September 2023, her party confirmed that she had fully repaid the loan.
