London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Support for Eurosceptic parties doubles in two decades across EU

Research reveals one in three voters now back parties that are critical of or hostile to the bloc

The paradox at the heart of Europe is revealed today in new research that shows that the vote share for Eurosceptic parties has more than doubled in two decades, even though support for the EU remains at record highs.

The sharp increase in the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties is laid bare in research conducted by academic experts in populism and radicalism across the EU who shared their work with the Guardian.

“European leaders who support the EU integration process can absolutely not afford to sit back and be complacent,” said Matthijs Rooduijn, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam, one of the PopuList project leaders. “Eurosceptic parties are very much thriving and it is unlikely that this is going to change anytime soon.”

The project defines Euroscepticism as encompassing both a “hard” variant – outright rejection of European political and economic integration, and fierce opposition to remaining in the EU – and softer, more qualified objections to particular aspects of the European project.

The publication of the research comes five weeks after Britain became the first country to voluntarily withdraw from the EU, and it coincides with a Guardian editorial commitment to deepen its coverage of Europe.

The research shows that since 1992, the first year in which there were free and fair elections in every country now a member of the EU, combined support for European far-right, far-left and other Eurosceptic parties has surged from 15% to almost 35%.

After more or less flatlining for more than a decade, support for Euroscepticism - which began to emerge as a fringe electoral theme for European far-right parties after the 1992 Maastricht treaty – started climbing rapidly from 2005.

Rooduijn attributes this rise mostly to the sharp Eurosceptic turn taken by Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, which sees itself as a “Christian bulwark”. He notes a similar big increase in 2010 when Hungary’s Fidesz – “the future of Europe”, according to its leader, Viktor Orbán – fully embraced Euroscepticism.

A third jump in support, this time among “other Eurosceptics”, came in 2013, reflecting the emergence of the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy. Far-right and far-left Euroscepticism made further gains in 2015 with the growing popularity of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and Podemos in Spain.

Rooduijn suggested these four distinct waves of increasing Eurosceptic electoral success may additionally be related to the EU’s eastward expansion in 2004 and the 2005 French and Dutch referendums on the proposed EU constitution; the Eurozone crisis of 2010; and the migration crisis of 2015 and the 2016 Brexit referendum.

“This new data shows that the rise of these parties’ electoral successes is steeper than previously thought,” Rooduijn said. “It’s striking because it means that today more than one in every three Europeans votes for a party that is critical of the EU.”

The success of Eurosceptic parties, however, “is only partly due to their actual Euroscepticism”, Rooduijn said. “For almost all of them, the issue of European unification is only of secondary – or even tertiary – importance. Their electoral successes are primarily due to their positions on other issues.”

He cited the example of Eurosceptic far-right parties, which make up about half of all the parties the project classifies as Eurosceptic. “These parties focus first and foremost on the issue of immigration,” Rooduijn said. “So although the EU plays an important role for them and their voters too, it is not their core issue.”

Multiple studies have shown that public opinion of the EU has, on average, become more positive in the last four years, apparently reflecting mounting uncertainties caused by the upheaval of Britain’s Brexit vote and the election in the US of Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his hostility towards the EU.

In a Eurobarometer survey last year by the European parliament, 68% of those polled felt EU countries overall had benefited from being part of the EU, the equal highest level since 1983, while 61% believed their country’s membership of the bloc was a good thing, a figure previously recorded only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

A Pew Research Center study last October also reported high general approval ratings and strong feelings that EU membership had been good for respondents’ countries, with satisfaction levels particularly high in central and eastern European nations, and more than 80% in the former communist states of Poland and Lithuania.

At the same time, alarmed by the popular backlash against Brexit, European populist leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders are no longer demanding Frexit , Italexit or Nexit.

Instead, said Cas Mudde, a populism specialist at the University of Georgia in the US, while most of Europe’s populist radical right parties remain Eurosceptic, they now seek to “reform the EU into a looser, more democratic organisation that returns national sovereignty to member states – although they differ on the nature of the future Europe they want.”

Yet despite the broad increase in public support for the EU in general, and the softer stance of many previously hardline Eurosceptic parties, the latest PopuList project data indicates that “when it comes to actual voting behaviour and parliamentary representation, Euroscepticism is still alive and kicking”, Rooduijn said.

One reason is simply the increased salience of the EU as an issue, he said. “As a result of an accumulation of various EU-related events, such as Brexit and the eurozone and migration crises, focus on the EU has increased over the years. Moreover, it’s likely to remain high on the political agenda.”

The PopuList, an overview of populist, far-right, far-left and Eurosceptic parties in Europe reviewed by 80 country experts, categorises all European parties that have obtained at least 2% of the vote – or parliamentary representation – in at least one national election since 1989. Its updated version is published on Tuesday.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×