The rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe, including a recent regional election win for Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) and growing support for France's Marine Le Pen ahead of next year's presidential election, is unlikely to cause an immediate collapse in European aid to Ukraine, according to political scientist Ihor Reiterovych.
Reiterovych, who holds a candidate of political sciences degree, made the assessment in an interview with UNIAN, addressing concerns in Kyiv about its dependence on European support as Russia's full-scale invasion enters its fifth year.
He described the growth of far-right populist support as a clear, long-running trend that began in Italy and spread through some Benelux countries before making gains in Germany. He said traditional parties have lost normal communication with society and cannot answer a series of complex questions, while populists offer simple solutions that citizens do not always examine closely enough to see they would not actually fix the underlying problems.
He added that populists deserve some credit for raising issues that genuinely concern citizens and can no longer be hidden, which is why they are gaining support. He said the AfD is following a path already taken by Italy's Five Star Movement, a populist, eurosceptic party, and by similar political forces in other European countries.
Why Germany's regional vote matters
Reiterovych said German regional elections carry particular weight because they serve as a barometer ahead of national elections. He said Germany would become the largest country to face a genuine threat from such forces if they eventually took national power, since the AfD, unlike Le Pen's party in France, genuinely appears extremist on many issues, which would mean stronger radical and populist rhetoric.
He said there is no immediate reason to worry about change at the European Union level, since the European Parliament is made up of many political forces and right-wing populist parties won far fewer votes than they wanted in the last elections. He said those parties have no influence over parliament and will not gain any before the current term ends, so it is too early to talk about a real danger to Ukraine from the spread of right-wing populism, though support for Ukraine would shrink if such parties took power. He said there was no reason to expect major changes in the near future.
Comparisons with Meloni's shift in Italy
Asked whether far-right parties' rhetoric on the war in Ukraine amounts to genuine policy or campaign talk that softens once in power, as happened with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Reiterovych said her example could prove instructive, since populists in power confront real politics and discover that some of their promises cannot be implemented.
He said that while right-wing movements can be popular, Russian President Vladimir Putin's positioning himself as a leader of right-wing movements worldwide, while killing women and children in Ukraine for years, is not viewed positively even by supporters of right-wing ideology, who understand that Putin's actions discredit the right-wing idea. He said that is why Meloni changed her position, though it remains unclear whether the same will happen in Germany given that the AfD's win was only regional.
AfD's national limits and Le Pen's shift
Reiterovych said the AfD cannot win power nationally before 2029, when Germany's next national elections are due, so a victory in individual states could affect support for Ukraine locally but not national policy, and he would not expect major changes.
On Le Pen, he said she too has undergone a shift, having previously held a different attitude toward Russia before trying to distance herself from Russia after the war began. He said she and her party would likely start to align with President Donald Trump's peacemaking rhetoric, but she still has to win the election, and in France, a presidential republic, the presidency alone does not guarantee control of parliament, where parliament and government play a very important role.
He noted that when Le Pen's camp raised the idea that France should not give Ukraine financial aid, rivals quickly pointed out that France spends very little money on this, prompting many National Rally figures to backtrack and say they had been misunderstood and that the issue remained open for discussion. He said the situation is therefore not so clear-cut that France would immediately abandon support for Ukraine, especially since it remains an EU member, adding that making statements while campaigning is different from making them while running the country.
Can Ukraine work with the new right?
Asked whether Ukraine could build relationships with far-right or populist governments already in power elsewhere in Europe, such as in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, Reiterovych said it is possible, pointing to Ukraine's efforts to work with Hungary's Peter Magyar, a fairly right-wing politician. He said relations with others are harder, citing Bulgaria, where the relevant political force is less right-wing than pan-Slavist in character.
He said Ukraine has its own conservative political forces and needs to approach such relationships systematically, understanding each force's ideological basis before making decisions, but said Ukraine's policy in this area has so far been minimal, with officials only starting to think about it once someone has already won.
Trump's influence on Europe's right
Asked whether Trump's support for far-right politicians across Europe helps or hurts them at the ballot box, Reiterovych said it hurt Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, since his bet on Trump and open courting of him were unpopular with many Hungarians.
He said that if Trump were riding high, for example by ending the Russia-Ukraine war or resolving the situation with Iran, his backing could help European right-wing politicians. But he said Trump himself is not a genuine right-wing politician in the way Le Pen or Meloni are, calling him a classic populist without ideological convictions, whose support can situationally help but tends to hurt more when relations with Europe overall are already poor, since people see Trump and the United States as weak in this respect. He said Orban's experience has become a cautionary example that will push many to try to distance themselves from Trump.
Ihor Reiterovych has worked in teaching and research since 2006. Since April 2006 he has been an associate professor at the department of public policy and political analysis at Ukraine's National Academy for Public Administration under the President. Since 2021 he has also been an associate professor at the department of parliamentarism at the Educational and Scientific Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
