Hungary referendum tests far-right, populist gains in Europe
BERLIN — In 2010 Ronald Gläser stood on the banks of the Spree River here and took part in a ceremony inspired by the conservative Tea Party movement in the United States.
Instead of tea, Gläser and about 20 other activists dumped olives into the river, a symbol of frustration at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's support for an economic bailout of Greece, a fellow European Union nation. At the time, the right-wing, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party did not exist.
Six years later, Gläser is one of the 24 AfD lawmakers elected in September to Berlin's state parliament for the first time. AfD is now represented in 10 of Germany's 16 state assemblies, and Gläser and his party are having a major influence on national politics, particularly the growing backlash to Merkel's open-door policy for migrants.
The AfD’s rise mirrors the sweeping success of anti-immigration, anti-establishment and anti-EU parties that have engulfed the continent, from Finland to Austria. These populist movements, no longer on the fringes, are challenging the region's political elite, who have ruled for generations based on center-left and center-right policies and ever closer European integration.
The EU "should not decide about immigration policies in Germany or anywhere else," Gläser said Wednesday. "This should be decided in Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Madrid, Paris. People in Europe don't want people in Brussels who they only indirectly elected to decide their fate."
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The latest test of populist power comes Sunday in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban is holding a national referendum on whether parliament must give its consent before the EU can force migrant quotas on the country. The quotas are a cornerstone of the EU's plan to deal with the migrant crisis, but some countries like Hungary don’t want to accept asylum seekers.
"We lose our European values and identity, the way frogs are cooked in slowly heating water,” Orban said Monday. “Quite simply, slowly there will be more and more Muslims, and we will no longer recognize Europe.”
Hungary's foreign and trade minister, Péter Szijjártó, said he expects voters to support the government’s position of rejecting the EU's planned mandatory resettlement of immigrants in Hungary.
"People are very frightened about this migratory wave," Szijjártó told USA TODAY. "Last year 400,000 people marched through Hungary. All of them violating the border, some of them attacking the police, occupying public areas, railroad stations, blocking the railway lines. ... People simply don’t want it."
Polls by Hungarian media show a majority of voters agree with the government, which needs at least a 50% turnout for the vote to be binding. It's not certain that many will vote. It's also not clear how the EU will react if the government view prevails. At a September summit in Slovakia, EU leaders acknowledged that after the United Kingdom's referendum in June in favor of leaving the 28-nation alliance, they have to allay concerns about migration, security, jobs and globalization.
Until then, the upstart political parties are siphoning off votes from Europe's mainstream establishment from country to country:
• In Germany, the AfD rails against Merkel's decision to admit over 1 million asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa last year, but the party also seeks tax reform and an end to what it sees as a culture of overbearing political correctness.
• In Britain, the United Kingdom Independence Party successfully campaigned for the U.K. to leave the EU by appealing to an anti-immigration backlash, anger over the EU’s power to impose social policies on member nations, plus voters’ beliefs that they were not reaping economic benefits from being in the EU.
• In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice Party took power in 2015 by pledging to support socially conservative measures such as curbing female reproductive rights.
• In Finland, the far-right Finns Party is the third-largest party in parliament. It wants to see immigration slashed, considers the idea of a U.K.-style referendum to exit the EU and promotes traditional views about women in the workplace and other gender equality issues.
• In France, far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen is the current favorite to win the first round of the presidential election on April 23. She repeatedly vows to defend French identity against the threat of Islam, as well as to make France a "master of its own laws and currency and the guardian of its borders."
"The patriotic reaction that you are seeing today from voters in France, the U.K. or Germany is a reminder to anyone who has forgotten that it is the will of the people that is the source of any power," said Eric Domard, a senior adviser to Le Pen.
Emilia Palonen, a politics professor at the University of Helsinki who specializes in European nationalism, added: "Many of these voters are desperate for alternatives."
Palonen said the Finn Party won over a large slice of the electorate with appeals that "encapsulate being anti-elite and anti-status quo" — the same themes behind the popularity of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the United States.
Contributing: Jim Michaels in Washington, D.C.