Several recent elections in Europe have registered swings against far right-wing parties. Reduced votes for Jorg Haider's Freedom Party in Viennese city elections this weekend, along with the collapse of the Republican party in BadenWurttemberg's state elections and the failure of the National Front in the French local elections last week, seem to indicate such a trend. While this will reassure opponents of their racist and xenophobic platforms it is more difficult to argue that it represents a real swing across west European states mostly governed at present by centre-left coalitions.
The Freedom Party vote in Vienna came down over seven points to 20 per cent compared to last year's national poll, following a virulent anti-foreigner campaign led by Mr Haider, with anti-semitic overtones. He embarrassed members of his party in coalition with the conservatives, but they were able to distance themselves from him since his withdrawal from formal leadership positions. Otherwise the party remains relatively strong, since it has not surprisingly lost some working class support following cutbacks in welfare programmes.
In Germany debate has raged over a remark by the Green Environment minister, Mr Jurgen Tritten, that the Christian Democrats should not speak of national pride without being open to the charge of competing for extremist votes with the Republican party. The result saw its vote halved and CDU supporters claiming it was precisely their unwillingness to concede the nationalist agenda that enabled them to hold their position. In France, meanwhile, the National Front party has not yet recovered from the split between Le Pen and Megret. Elsewhere in western Europe far right-wing parties remain strong in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland, fuelled by outright hostility to immigration, deeper European integration and globalisation.
Much of this pattern may change after the next Italian election. Many observers expect it to be won by Mr Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing Forza Italia in alliance with the National Alliance, which describes itself as post-fascist (having emerged from an avowedly fascist past) and the far-right federalist Northern League led by the rowdy populist Umberto Bossi. The probable strongly anti-immigrant line to be followed by such a coalition would raise again many of the issues thrown up by the Austrian coalition last year, when limited boycotts were imposed by other EU governments. Such procedures have been streamlined since then in the Treaty of Nice.
A more pressing issue would be the budgetary stance adopted by a Berlusconi government. The rebuke delivered by the European Commission and Ecofin Council to the Government over what they see as a pro-cyclical budgetary policy were made very much with bigger states in mind, of which Italy is the obvious target. Mr Berlusconi will campaign on a platform of cutting taxes and boosting spending, despite Italy's high public indebtedness. He has already said he will reject advice from Brussels not to follow that course. Such a confrontation would probably re-embolden right-wing politics elsewhere in Europe. It would also pose intriguing problems for Fianna Fail, anxious to escape from its isolation within the European Parliament by developing relations with Mr Berlusconi's party.