Populist surge; Europe’s elections signal rise of far-right movements

According to the Financial Times, European leaders breathed a sigh of relief after a pro-EU centrist candidate won Romania’s presidential election on Sunday.

However, the election results in Poland and Portugal indicate how a populist uprising across Europe is gaining strength and moving closer to seizing or returning to power. These results also demonstrate how ideological alignment with U.S. President Donald Trump can yield results for European leaders.

EU leaders praised Nicușor Dan, the reformist mayor of Bucharest, for defeating far-right nationalist candidate George Simion in Romania’s presidential election. Simion, who described himself as the “Trump candidate,” had pledged to steer Romania on an anti-EU, anti-Ukraine path aligned with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

French President Emmanuel Macron said after the victory of the Brussels-aligned candidate that Romanian voters chose “democracy, the rule of law, and the European Union.”

However, Simion still secured 46% of the vote, and his party, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), could become the second-largest in parliament, potentially capitalizing on expected government turmoil and necessary austerity measures to address the budget deficit.

Dimitar Bechev, an expert at the Carnegie Europe think tank, said: “This time we succeeded, but what about next time? There are probably many voters whose opinions keep shifting. We give another chance to someone in the liberal camp, and they fail, and Simion, with all the discontent, grows stronger.”

Elections in Portugal

Following Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Portugal, one of the few European countries without a significant far-right movement until recently, the anti-immigration Chega party is expected to secure second place after overseas votes are counted.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, from the center-right, had previously ruled out cooperation with Chega, but on Monday, he dodged a question on the matter, saying, “Everyone should be able to participate in dialogue and prioritize national interests.”

Elections in Poland

Rafał Trzaskowski, Warsaw’s pro-EU mayor, defeated nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki in the first round of Sunday’s elections but faces an unexpectedly tough second-round contest against him on June 1.

The Financial Times noted that while Poland’s challenge is not as severe as Romania’s, which has not had an anti-EU leader since the fall of communism, the outcome next month remains crucial for Brussels.

The newspaper’s analyst argues that the three elections in these countries reflect an anti-establishment sentiment among voters. This is particularly evident in Romania, where the joint candidate of the ruling center-left and center-right parties secured only one-fifth of the votes in the first round in April.