The results of the last European Elections of 2014 confirmed the rise of right and far right 'populist' parties across the EU. The success of a range of parties, such as Denmark s Dansk Folskeparti, Slovenia s Slovenska demokratska stranka, France s Front National, Greece s Golden Dawn, the United Kingdom Independence Party, Beppe Grillo s Five Star Movement in Italy and the Austrian FPO, has been perceived as a political wave which is transforming the face of the European Parliament, and challenging at some level the hegemony of the 'big four' well-established European political...

During the European elections of 2014, one of the main issues raised by the media was the electoral performance of so called populist parties . The electorate confirmed its deep dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties, voting for far right parties in parliamentary elections in Northern Europe (Austria, Denmark, Sweden), Eastern Europe (Hungary, where the deeply anti-Semitic Jobbik party gained votes) and in France (where the French National Front won about a quarter of the vote), while in the Southern European countries, battered by austerity policies, it was the radical right...