European Right-Wing Populist Parties Adopt Left-Wing Economic Policies to Expand Appeal

Euro­pean right-wing pop­ulist par­ties are adopt­ing left-wing eco­nom­ic poli­cies to broad­en their appeal among work­ing-class vot­ers frus­trat­ed with gov­ern­ment aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures. On 25 Sep­tem­ber 2025, The Wall Street Jour­nal report­ed that par­ties from Swe­den to Greece are aban­don­ing tra­di­tion­al pro-mar­ket posi­tions in favor of high­er wel­fare ben­e­fits, sub­si­dies, and pro­tec­tion­ism while main­tain­ing their anti-immi­gra­tion stances. The arti­cle begins:

Right-wing pop­ulists have a new strat­e­gy to woo Euro­pean vot­ers frus­trat­ed with cash-strapped gov­ern­ments: Veer left. From Swe­den to Greece and Aus­tria, par­ties that for years favored a small state, low tax­es, free trade and dereg­u­la­tion are now call­ing for high­er wel­fare ben­e­fits, sub­si­dies and protectionism—often along­side pro-mar­ket posi­tions. The shape-shift­ing mes­sage has affect­ed the coher­ence of their agen­das but boost­ed their appeal, poll­sters said. It has been a par­tic­u­lar­ly potent strat­e­gy when emp­ty state cof­fers and shaky par­lia­men­tary majori­ties are mak­ing it hard­er for estab­lish­ment par­ties to spend more on pro­grams that are pop­u­lar with vot­ers. “It is a wide­spread phe­nom­e­non,” said Gilles Ival­di, pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at Sci­ences-Po in Paris. “Many of these par­ties have drift­ed over time. They haven’t switched to the left, but they have enlarged their eco­nom­ic offer­ing to incor­po­rate left-wing measures.”

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-populist-right-wing-left-economics-eb7d3f9f [pay­wall]

Key Points

• Ger­many’s AfD attract­ed 33% of blue-col­lar vot­ers in Euro­pean Par­lia­ment elec­tions, more than any oth­er party.
• Reform UK pledged to raise state spend­ing by £53 bil­lion annu­al­ly, while cut­ting tax­es, which is a contradiction.
• France’s Nation­al Ral­ly sup­ports a low­er retire­ment age and wel­fare increas­es along­side tra­di­tion­al right-wing positions.
• Par­ties prac­tice “wel­fare chau­vin­ism” by sup­port­ing gen­er­ous ben­e­fits for cit­i­zens while exclud­ing migrants.

How the Global National Conservative Alliance Transforms Economic Policy Through Nationalism

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift away from Rea­gan-era free mar­kets toward nation­al­ist pro­tec­tion­ist poli­cies that pri­or­i­tize nation­al sov­er­eign­ty over glob­al eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion. This coali­tion pro­motes eco­nom­ic nation­al­ism through pro­tec­tion­ist poli­cies that favor domes­tic indus­tries while reject­ing tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive sup­port for inter­na­tion­al trade agree­ments. Hun­gary under Vik­tor Orbán exem­pli­fies this approach through com­pre­hen­sive media con­trols and con­sti­tu­tion­al reforms that have trans­formed the coun­try’s polit­i­cal econ­o­my since 2010. The alliance oper­ates through events like CPAC con­fer­ences that show­case coor­di­na­tion between Euro­pean far-right lead­ers and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives in pro­mot­ing shared ide­o­log­i­cal frameworks.

Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has imple­ment­ed this eco­nom­ic nation­al­ism through pro­tec­tion­ist trade poli­cies and strin­gent immi­gra­tion mea­sures that mark a clear depar­ture from tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive eco­nom­ics. The move­ment empha­sizes nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions as core prin­ci­ples that guide eco­nom­ic deci­sion-mak­ing. While Putin ini­tial­ly sought to lead this alliance, Hun­gary has emerged as the cen­tral bridge between Euro­pean and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives fol­low­ing Rus­si­a’s dimin­ished role due to the war in Ukraine. The GNCA con­tin­ues expand­ing its influ­ence through many of Trump’s appointees attend­ing Nation­al Con­ser­vatism con­fer­ences that strength­en transna­tion­al ties and advance shared pol­i­cy agendas.

Exter­nal References:

• Ambas­sador Jamieson Greer’s Remarks at the 2025 Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Conference
• How Orbán won? Neolib­er­al dis­en­chant­ment and the grand strat­e­gy of finan­cial nationalism
• Nation­al con­ser­vatism is the new par­a­digm of con­ser­v­a­tive politics

 Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.