Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the rise of the far right in the European Parliament elections, Israel’s deadly strike on a U.N.-run school in Gaza, and Russian saber-rattling against the West.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the rise of the far right in the European Parliament elections, Israel’s deadly strike on a U.N.-run school in Gaza, and Russian saber-rattling against the West.
The Next Five Years
The European Union kicked off four days of parliamentary elections on Thursday, and far-right parties are expected to win their largest share of seats in the body’s history. Although the European Parliament cannot draft legislation, its veto and budget-approving powers give it authority to shape the bloc’s agenda for the next five years.
This week’s elections are the second-largest democratic exercise in the world after India’s general elections. Roughly 350 million EU citizens are registered to vote on 720 parliamentary seats, with candidates representing some 200 parties. Initial results are expected on Sunday.
Green parties secured major gains in 2019 during the last European Parliament elections, as climate change dominated public concern. But the rise of far-right and extremist parties since then has pushed back on protective environmental policies. Popular right-wing leaders have denounced carbon emission reduction targets, arguing that they come at their nations’ economic expense.
These lawmakers have also pursued more restrictive migration legislation. They believe that some countries—such as Greece and Italy, both of which have popular far-right parties—bear a disproportionate burden for accepting migrants in comparison to other European nations that allegedly shirk their share of the responsibility. Many also espouse anti-immigrant views rooted in the belief that European identity—and especially white, Christian European identity—as well as the bloc’s various national identities are threatened by the arrival of foreign migrants, particularly those from places such as the Middle East and Africa.
This week, far-right parties are seeking greater control over the European Parliament to, if necessary, “change the European guidelines in order to be in charge of our own immigration policy and asylum policy,” Geert Wilders, the staunchly anti-Islam and anti-immigration leader of the Netherlands’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), said after voting on Thursday. The PVV became the Netherlands’ largest party six months ago.
Wilders’s party, along with two other Dutch parties—the Christian Democratic Alliance and Forum for Democracy—said on Thursday that cyberattacks had targeted their websites, raising fears that foreign actors may try to interfere in the election. A pro-Kremlin hacker group claimed responsibility for those cyberattacks as well as attacks on another Dutch party and an EU auditing body. This comes as European leaders butt heads over how to support Ukraine in its war against Russia and how to best respond to the Israel-Hamas war.
Even among the far right, though, divisions are emerging. Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has a neofascist past, hopes to bolster her standing when Rome votes on Saturday while also distancing herself from French nationalist Marine Le Pen and members of Berlin’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Last year, the AfD was the second-most popular party in Germany, but scandals surrounding lead candidate Maximilian Krah, who last month said members of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary branch were not automatically criminals, have soured the AfD’s international appeal.
Other right-wing parties expected to win seats this week are Austria’s Freedom Party, the Greek Solution party, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, and Poland’s Law and Justice party. Meanwhile, center-right European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is seeking a second term by courting far-right lawmakers, including Meloni.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Civilian casualties. An Israeli strike targeted a United Nations-run school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused the facility of hosting a Hamas command center with up to 30 militants inside, some of whom it said took part in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The IDF said the strike killed numerous militants.
Local officials rejected these claims and reported at least 40 people killed in the strike, including nine women and 14 children. Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said the school was sheltering 6,000 displaced people at the time and did not receive prior warning of the attack. He was unable to verify whether Hamas militants were located at the site.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza of using U.N. sites and other civilian targets as operational bases. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said on Thursday that Israel had previously called off the strike twice to try to limit civilian casualties.
Nuclear saber-rattling. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Moscow could supply weapons to countries within striking distance of the United States and its European allies if they continue to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. “We reserve the right to act in the same way,” Putin said. He also said Brussels was wrong to assume that the Kremlin would never use nuclear weapons—a threat he has made throughout Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In response, U.S. President Joe Biden called Putin “a dictator.” Last week, the United States and Germany granted Kyiv permission to use their weapons against military targets inside Russia near Ukraine’s northeastern border so long as the operations were in self-defense. On Tuesday, Ukraine used a U.S.-made artillery system for the first publicly reported time to strike a missile facility in the Russian region of Belgorod.
A tougher migrant stance. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a new migrant policy on Thursday that would deport asylum-seekers from Syria and Afghanistan who commit serious crimes back to their countries of origin. Migrants who condone or glorify terrorism would also be sent back to their home nations.
“Germany’s interest in security outweighs the offender’s interest in protection,” Scholz said. Germany currently does not deport people to those two countries because Berlin does not officially recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan and considers Syria’s security situation too unstable to allow deportations there. Experts, though, say some form of cooperation with the Taliban would be necessary to conduct the Afghan deportations.
This drastic shift in position comes less than a week after a suspected Islamist extremist from Afghanistan killed a German police officer and injured four others in the southwestern city of Mannheim. The far-right Alternative for Germany party capitalized on the assault to condemn Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, accusing it of being weak on immigration.
Odds and Ends
Even Mother Earth needs a face-lift now and again. China’s Yuntai Mountain Waterfall, which Beijing touts as the country’s tallest uninterrupted falls, faced scrutiny on Monday after a hiker posted a video showing water coming from a pipe built into the rockface. “I’m a seasonal attraction, so I can’t guarantee I’ll look my best every time you visit,” the park posted on Tuesday on behalf of the waterfall, adding that “a small enhancement during the dry season” makes it “look my best for my friends.”