On June 5th, Politico reported, "As the far right surges, this week's European Parliament election will reorder the Continent's political landscape." One of CNN's post-election headlines ran, "Far right surges in European Parliament elections but center still holds." These sorts of headlines may make for exciting reading, but they reveal a profound lack of understanding of what is really going on politically in Europe.

First, while you will always find pockets of far-right thinking in Europe's political system, the notion that new and emerging political parties on the right are generally "far-right" is simply false. For example, if you go to the webpage of one of the major emerging political groups that is supposed to be part of the "far-right surge," the European Conservatives and Reformists, you are greeted not by neo-Nazi slogans, but by commitments to "safeguarding citizens and borders," "respecting the rights and sovereignty of member States," "protecting the global environment at a cost we can afford," "improving the union's efficiency and effectiveness," and "cooperating with global partners." 

If you peruse the website of the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia), the political party associated with the supposedly "far-right" Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in search of reactionary and extremist ideas, you will be deeply disappointed. The website displays a fairly humdrum list of policies to promote economic growth, a safer Europe, a better health system, policies to support families and boost the birth rate, opposition to bio-surveillance ("green pass"), and the need to combat illegal immigration. 

Here, for example, is a translation of one paragraph from the Brothers of Italy's European electoral platform, concerning immigration:

It must be Europe that decides who enters its territory and not criminal organizations or external actors interested in using migratory flows as a weapon to destabilize governments. Immigration must be framed within a context of legality and addressed in a structural manner. Saving lives is a duty, as is protecting those entitled to asylum, but the model favored by the left—characterized by indiscriminate acceptance and never-implemented redistributions (of migrants)—has proven to be a failure.