(WASHINGTON) — If this past weekend in European politics is an indicator of anything, it’s that the “Trump effect” is real, and its reverberations are unpredictable.
Three European Union countries held elections on Sunday — Romania, Poland and Portugal — with the results failing to show any clear trend for the future of European politics. The elections did, however, indicate the American president’s growing influence on the continent.
The disparate responses from voters in all three countries — and the lack of any decisive victory for any one party or candidate in Portugal or Poland — hint that the political polarization that has roiled the U.S. over the past decade is a global trend, not merely an American one.
As to whether President Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” movement swirling around him can establish European avatars, the question remains an open one.
“I don’t know if I have a firm answer,” Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, told ABC News. “At the moment, we are all monitoring what is happening and how this influence can establish itself.”
“It’s very early,” Belin added. “This is an ongoing phenomenon.”
While it’s unclear what the extent of Trump’s impact on European politics will ultimately be, Belin said the impact is “stronger” than it was two years ago.
Trump’s influence — indirect and direct — has given populist movements like Germany’s Alternative for Germany party, Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and Portugal’s far-right Chega party a clear boost, evident in recent elections in each country.
“If I am to compare with two years ago, for example, it is stronger, it is more united, it gives inspiration to a ton of populist nationalist leaders in Europe,” Belin said. “It’s getting stronger. That’s the direction it’s going in right now.”
The groundswell of grievances that carried Trump to the Oval Office twice is not merely an American phenomenon and manifests differently in individual nations. Concerns over globalization, immigration, inequality, the cost of living, low rates of economic growth, progressivism and national identity are near-universal in the Western democratic world.
Trump seized upon those conditions in the U.S. and right-wing leaders in Europe are seeking to do the same.
Election week in Europe
This week’s election results in Romania, Poland and Portugal, however, suggest the translation of Trumpism into European political languages remains incomplete.
In Romania, voters opted for Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan’s pro-Europe, pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine platform. Dan won with around 54% of the vote.
Dan’s opponent — Trump supporter George Simion, who courted the MAGA movement and even visited the U.S. during his campaign — came up short, though he vowed to continue “our fight for freedom and our great values along with other patriots, sovereignists and conservatives all over the world.”
In Poland, the presidential election saw liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski secure an unexpectedly tight victory in the first round of voting with around 31% of the vote, beating out right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki — who was personally endorsed by Trump — who had 29.5% of the vote.
The two men will go into the second round of voting on June 1, hoping to draw voters from other minor candidates, among them a significant bloc which voted for far-right firebrand Slawomir Mentzen, who came third with 14.8%.
Piotr Buras, a senior policy fellow at ECFR at the head of its Warsaw office, told ABC News that Trump has loomed large over the election.
Nawrocki framed himself as the Trump-friendly candidate, along with his backers in the Law and Justice party, criticizing Trzaskowski’s Civic Platform party and Prime Minister Donald Tusk for allegedly undermining Polish-American relations.
“We used to have a nationwide consensus on America,” Buras said, with voters generally warm to the idea of close ties with Washington, D.C. “Now, because of this ideological divide in Poland, because of the U.S. and because of Trump’s approach to Europe, Poland is suddenly divided on how to go about America,” he added.
In Portugal, meanwhile, the far-right Chega party gained a record 22.6% share of the vote, blowing open the long-standing two-party domination of the country’s political scene even though it was unable to overhaul the ruling center-right Democratic Alliance.
“I am not going to stop until I become the prime minister of Portugal,” Chega leader Andre Ventura — who was among the foreign politicians invited to Trump’s second inauguration — said.
Making Europe great again?
Such confidence in defeat may be buoyed by the strong foundations populist parties and candidates are putting down in Europe. Across the continent, far-right groups are winning historically large chunks of the electorate and dominating political debates, even without securing the reins of power.
In the U.K., the right-wing Reform party recorded a stunning performance in the May local elections, winning hundreds of council seats and leaving leader Nigel Farage — well-known for his cozy relationship with Trump and the MAGA movement — to declare an end to the traditional dominance of Britain’s two major parties.
In Germany’s February parliamentary election, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party converted years of growing popularity to win around 21% of the vote and become the second-largest party in the Bundestag.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance conducted his first foreign trip in his new position to Germany in February, shortly before the election, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 14.
In his speech addressing the annual security conference, Vance criticized Europe for hindering free speech, suggesting the conference’s decision to ban AfD members from attending was a form of censorship.
“In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Vance said. “I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or, worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” Many political analysts considered Vance’s remarks to be a tacit endorsement of AfD from the Trump administration.
And in France, President Emmanuel Macron has thus far held off the persistent challenge for the presidency from far-right leader Marine Le Pen and the National Rally, but he was unable to stop the party from becoming the largest in the National Assembly in 2024. Only a shaky minority government has kept the party out of the prime minister’s office.
The insurgent parties are coordinating. Leaders have increasingly been drawn to American conservative events, such as the Conservative Political Action Conference — the first-ever European installment of which was held in Budapest, Hungary, in 2022.
And this year, right-wingers gathered for the Make Europe Great Again conference in Madrid in February, organized by Spain’s far-right VOX party.
Buras noted rumors that Vice President JD Vance may even attend a planned CPAC event in Poland in late May, in what could only be interpreted as a show of support for Nawrocki. The event raises the prospect of American “interference almost, or at least influence, from the U.S.,” Buras said.
MAGA blowback
Trump is just as divisive abroad as he is at home. Indeed, polls consistently indicate that many European voters are skeptical of, unsettled by or outright hostile to the American president.
There is, then, no guarantee that a MAGA association will put foreign populists in power. Recent elections in Canada and Australia, for example, saw center-left establishment parties secure victory against conservative opponents they sought to smear as Trumpian.
Trump’s return to the White House “has woken up the anti-populist or anti-nationalist movements,” Belin said. “It gives them a foil. … You want to mobilize your electorate and use the U.S. of Donald Trump as a sort of scarecrow — the mobilization effect goes in two directions.”
“It fuels the extremist base and so it excites a lot of people, but it also fuels the other side and it also frightens the middle,” Belin said.
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