Europe’s Politics Shift Right as ‘Centrist’ Parties Abandon Traditional Values

On 31 March 2025, The Par­lia­ment Mag­a­zine report­ed that Euro­pean pol­i­tics is expe­ri­enc­ing a sig­nif­i­cant right­ward shift, with self-described cen­trist par­ties increas­ing­ly adopt­ing posi­tions pre­vi­ous­ly asso­ci­at­ed with far-right groups. The arti­cle begins:

As Euro­pean democ­ra­cies get increas­ing­ly hard­er to gov­ern, find­ing their polit­i­cal cen­tre has become a wild goose chase at best — and a myth­i­cal quest at worst. This dilem­ma is par­tic­u­lar­ly acute in Ger­many, where the con­cept of “cen­trism” looms large in polit­i­cal dis­course. Extrem­ism tore the coun­try, and Europe, apart, mak­ing mod­er­a­tion an attrac­tive anti­dote to any ide­o­log­i­cal dis­ease that might threat­en the demo­c­ra­t­ic body politic. It helps explain why three of Ger­many’s estab­lish­ment par­ties — the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union (CDU), the Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (SPD) and the Free Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (FDP) — all proud­ly lay claim to the “mid­dle.” A fourth, the Greens, got their start as dog­mat­ic ide­al­ists, but they climbed to pow­er as prag­mat­ic real­ists. Such rev­er­ence for a mid­dle way, how­ev­er, has not insu­lat­ed Ger­many from the polar­i­sa­tion and frag­men­ta­tion that has tak­en hold across Euro­pean democracies…

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Key Points:

• Ger­many’s pre­sump­tive Chan­cel­lor Friedrich Merz has moved his Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty clos­er to far-right posi­tions on migra­tion and secu­ri­ty issues.
• Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent von der Leyen claimed “the cen­tre has held” while adopt­ing far-right poli­cies like “return hubs” for deportations.
• Since the pan­dem­ic, trust in gov­ern­ments has decreased, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the unem­ployed and those out­side the tra­di­tion­al labor market.
• Self-described cen­trist lead­ers across Europe are increas­ing­ly imple­ment­ing restric­tive migra­tion poli­cies that may vio­late inter­na­tion­al and EU law.

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA) rep­re­sents a polit­i­cal move­ment that unites right-wing and far-right fac­tions world­wide under the ban­ners of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al preser­va­tion, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al gov­er­nance. By reject­ing lib­er­al inter­na­tion­al­ism and glob­al­ist eco­nom­ic poli­cies, nation­al con­ser­vatism pro­motes pro­tec­tion­ism, strict bor­der con­trol, and tra­di­tion­al social val­ues. This shift marks a break from the free-mar­ket ideals of Rea­gan-era con­ser­vatism, align­ing instead with pop­ulist nation­al­ism. The GNCA’s Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ences serve as piv­otal events, strength­en­ing ties between Euro­pean far-right lead­ers and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives, includ­ing for­mer Trump admin­is­tra­tion officials.

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