The Rising of the Rightist Populist Parties in Europe

In this study, the rise of the rightist populist parties in the European Union (EU), especially because of the recent economic crisis, is comprehensively examined. In the study, the economic crisis and identity problems in the European Union are analyzed. The results of elections in countries such as Austria and France, and their effect on the EU elections, are subjected to analysis. The current crisis of the EU increasingly engages the people in the member and non-member nations. The European citizens hardly define themselves as EU citizens and they consider the old political movements as elitist and distant to citizens. The identity losses in Europe because of wrong policies caused by Germany and France hegemony damages the EU spirit, and as a result, the nationalist movements are getting stronger.


Introduction
The previous powers, i.e. political rightists, appear as if they are restructuring themselves because of heavy economic crisis that took Europe hostage for more than 10 years.It is as if the environment had been created just to feed them: unemployment, falling real income and terrorising distrust with lack of perspective accompanying it.
In addition, the phenomenon that has existed since the European Union (EU) establishment has decorously acquired importance for the first time under the existing conditions-the identity crisis of the EU.Nations that are economically proficient have been anxious about gathering a nucleus in Europe for quite some time.The consequences for economically troubled nations, especially for the Eastern European nations and in the southern part of the Union, are certainly unpredictable.
The potentially terrific consequences of economically dangerous phases have been mainly understood since the 1920s.In the past, American economic crises passed through Europe, destroying the world's economies beginning with Nazi Germany.Re-occurrence of that scenario is impossible; however, the danger cannot be eliminated completely because the economic crisis knocks down the independent perception of the EU.
Accordingly, it seems that public welfare is no longer at the forefront.In contrast, more particular (i.e.local and special) benefits of individual nations have increasingly gained importance.In what aspects this environment coincides with public approval and the extent that this approval is reflected in the election results of the political rightists are the subjects of this study.
The following research question related to this subject gains focus in the centre of the study.
'Is there a relation between the economic crises in Europe and the successes of political rightists?' The aim of these analyses is to provide comparisons for the successes of rightist parties in Europe within the context of economic crises with existing literature on past successes.

Crisis region: Europe
Since 2008, almost every nation has been directly affected by the economic crisis.Economic figures regressed, particularly in France, Italy, Germany and the USA.The worst economic regression since 1945 was announced in the USA (Bivens, 2012).The consequences of the crisis were also severely experienced in South Korea, Japan and Italy.Developing countries such as Russia, India, China and Brazil could not escape the economic trend and experienced decreases in their economic growth rates.(http://www.finanzen.net/nachricht/fonds/Pioneer-InvestmentsKolumne-Schwellenland-ist-nicht-gleich-Schwellenland-3590107) In the European Union important measures taken during the struggle of the Euro crisis have been the measures called deemed rescue shields, that were applied to support countries (such as Portugal, Greece and Spain) in crisis.The unifying packages prepared by this policy could have helped struggle with the worst consequences of the crisis.However, the prevention of new balloons could not be managed and revealed itself through increases in financial markets that did not reflect in the real economy.Furthermore, regressing demand had an effect on the labour markets (AK, 2013: 29).The official unemployment rate in Spain is above 28%, which is considerably similar to that of the 1930s world economic crisis.Unemployment of young population is a great problem for the expectations of the public because the resulting futureoriented pessimism forces the parents' generation to devote more to savings, thus reducing the economic growth (AK, 2013: 29).In the meaning of current changes in the European Union, especially social policies seem problematic.Supporting of new candidate states having a very low economical power causes economic inequality and fluctuations in economic welfare.
Almost daily revolts in the suburbs of France indicate the consequences of depriving the younger generation opportunities for regular income and their resulting futures.England faced the revolt of their younger generation in 2011, which undoubtedly and directly exhibited the danger that disappointed youth may create for social unity (AK, 2013: 29).
In recent years, the expanding policy of EU towards east has caused many problems.As the new member nations do not observe the rules properly.This doubtful environment among the public and EU economic crisis forces the EU politicians to be careful about their attitudes on expansion.These negative situations do not only increase dissatisfaction in the EU states but also increases the doubts about the expansion of EU.It is struggled to increase sensitivity against the problems of states that are affected by unemployment.The irregular budget policies of decision making organs in some countries cause a problem.High expenditures that are not cut in cyclical rising periods cause budget deficits in the long term.
After collapsing of the Soviet Union, though Europe attained a central position and all the regional dangers towards Europe were decreased or eliminated, especially the countries in Southeast Europe felt themselves in the background politically from the side of EU and could not keep pace with Central Europe economically.Especially, economic and social policies that could not be coordinated caused the countries like Greece and Spain not to be included in the integration process.The money and finance policies must be harmonized for being a political unity and the European Union must act within the unity related to important economic issues.

Identity crisis
This scenario not only refers to the recently experienced economic crisis, and experts suggest that the stage of the crisis has passed into a new phase.In this phase, it seems that the dream for a better Europe has lost its brilliance.In fact, voices asserting that rightfulness has died away have been heard more powerfully than before because of the financial crisis and economic promises not kept by the EU (AK, 2013: 29).The European Union has firstly focused on its own problems and it is observed that it is heavily in an identity crisis.The image of Europe lost its feature to be a role model for developing companies because of the debt crisis and insufficient cooperation.
'A question directed to the economic reality of a society becomes a question directed to the political reality of it at the same time.'(AK, 2013: 29) This situation is not exclusively considered as an economic problem because, as can be clearly interpreted, Europe has no concept of it.Rather, Europe is concerned with concepts such as human rights, separation of powers and state of law.But what, in reality, comprises the European identity?Which values lie in its foundation?The question shapes itself according to a structure requiring the answer as to whether the union must have a character dependent on a confederation or federation.Jürgen Habermas sights a future in the European Federation as one that is, in general, obliged to be expanded.He suggests that the possibility of acceptable reconciliations increases with the number of participating nations (Schröder, 2014).This idea also reveals an excruciating reality because, as the real incomes of households in two-thirds of the EU nations have decreased (specifically in Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Estonia and Ireland), the division of Europe has become a current issue.This development is completely opposite to the situation in northern countries such as Poland, Germany and France.In such countries, the income has remained the same or has increased because of the social systems and stable labour market relations.Not all the population groups have benefitted to the same extent (http://www.deutschlandradio.de/eusozialespaltungeuropasverschaerftsich.331.de.html?dram:article_id =233580).In principle, well-rooted parties disagree with how such situations can be controlled.This gap is distinguishably filled with excessive, especially right spectrum parties (Carlens, 2014).A constructive and healthy approach cannot be exhibited unless a solution is found to such problems of the European Union and reached to an agreement on important basic subjects.As a result of this, membership negotiations of EU candidate states are extended and left aside.
Such realities damage the European Union and as the economic attractiveness of EU has decreased and political incompatibilities within the union damage the image of EU, whether the membership is meaningful for candidate countries is in question.From the economic perspective, the shared currency seems to be a danger for the existence of EU.Basically, it is thought that different economies cannot be constricted in a shared currency with different exchange policy concepts.These discussions damage the cosmopolite vein of European Union.
In the coming 10 years, the development of EU identity will be determined by the nationalist currents.This situation causes problems and stresses accompanying to the identity crisis.For instance, refugee pressure plays an important role in increasing nationalist currents in Europe.This "reactionary" nationalism is ignited by the populists in Denmark, Hungarian or Italy.However, the reform pressure applied in the form of saving policy causes nationalist reactions especially in conservative masses as in the example of Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Rightist parties and their development in Europe France
France's Front National movement began in the mid-1980s under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Pen.When Le Pen came in second in presidential elections with a voting rate above 17%, he provided a political paradigm change.Throughout the following years, the party lost its credibility, in part, because the former President Sarkozy followed a hard line domestic immigration route.In 2011, Le Pen's daughter gained an election struggle and was elected as his successor.Since then, he has tried to gain a seat for his party in the society and convert it into a public party.His basic messages are aimed at immigration opposition and, again, economic and social matters.In this context, he argues in opposition to globalisation, asserting that France must leave the EU (Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2012: 153).
During recent years, French right-wing populists, along with other European right-wing populist movements, have increasingly pursued a sort of "querfront"-strategy.This strategy is based on the notion of the integration of traditional social democratic fundamental values -like social equality, proximity to the people in media work, and understanding for the outer form of contributions of "little people" to political discourses -into politics.This sort of strategy, however, can also be characterized by the fact that social democratic fundamental values are exclusively referred to nationals.In the case of French right-wing populism, this tendency is mixed with a latent racism against naturalised French people from former colonies and the Middle East (Decker, 2013: 61).
Against the backdrop of these developments, the "Front National" has become a power in France capable of gaining majority support.The special constellation of the party leadership of three generations of politicians related by blood (father as party founder, mother as party chairman and daughter as youth representative) enables the addressing of a very broad target group.To this day, Jean-Marie Le Pen still functions as a contact person for traditional right-wing extremists, if only in the background, while Marine Le Pen appears in a statesmanlike fashion and is considered eligible for the French autochthonous middle class as well as for immigrants.(Carvalho, 2013: 123).Within the scope of political Marketing, Jean-Marie's granddaughter, Marion Maréchal Le Pen, is especially good at keeping in touch with the particularly active "Identitary Movement" as well as other modernised right-wing extremist groups.Additionally, Marion Maréchal Le Pen also uses her attractive female appearance in order to score with the male target group despite lacking personal political substance.

Austria
The right-wing populist movement has a very long tradition in Austria.Around 1900 already, politicians were active, who, according to the present definition would have had to be considered as right-wing populists.One example of such a politician is Karl Lueger who had been the mayor of Vienna at that time and who, very consciously, combined anti-Semitic and racist positions with politics committed to proximity to the people and social balance (Lindemann, 2014: 44).
In Austria, in the 1980s already, the formation of a strong modern right-wing populist movement begins to emerge.Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, the traditional national liberal FPÖ is transformed to a rightwing populist party.After several great successes as well as setbacks, the FPÖ, today, is about to takeover the government in Austria.To this day, the party is led by an "elite" of German National socialised specialists, who, analogous to the strategic positioning of right-wing populists in France, communicates traditional social democratic values (Mair, 2004: 171).
The Austrian Liberal Party (FPÖ), under the leadership of Jörg Haider, has gained success since 1986 in gaining a seat against settled parties, such as SPÖ and ÖVP.The party superficially destroyed the German nationalist traditions and substituted it with populism.The party that hit the top with approximately 27% of the votes in 2000 achieved the position of participating in the government.From that point, the party faced a fall because the application of an objective government policy was extraordinarily difficult.Moreover, Haider followed the route of the opposition parties and restrained his own party.Consequently, the defeat in the election and establishment of the Unity for the Future of Austria Party (BZÖ) by Haider caused division in the party (Luther, 2005: 5).FPÖ, leaving behind election campaign debts, got over a critical phase and returned to survive with a struggle.The party strengthened itself under the leadership of H.C Strache and ran from one election success to another with powerful and partly ethnocentric discourses.In the National Assembly elections, both parties gained success.After Haider's death, BZÖ increasingly lost its importance and continues to struggle to survive.His daughter's entrance into political engagement only lasted several weeks (http://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/wahlen/europa_wahl/621158_Ulrike-Haider-Quercia-legt-Kandidatur-zurueck.html).
One particularity of the right-wing populist movement in Austria is its relative independence from economic and social crisis scenarios.A further particularity can be seen in the fact that the FPÖ positions itself as the representation of interests of a segment of the public, which is not identical to the autochthonous Germans among Austrian people.The country's special history entails that immigrated and naturalised (or not yet naturalised) citizens from former Crown lands (especially from former Yugoslavia) can identify with the FPÖ in particular and with Austrian right-wing populism as a whole (Kas, 2015: 29).
Despite their undoubted German national political leadership, where it is part of the self-image to not distance oneself from neo-Nazism and traditional right-wing extremism, the party is thus able to position itself as a people's party.It also succeeds, within the scope of its social democratic welfare policy, in mobilising even the old left-wing electorates, if with anti-immigration undertones.

Netherland
Netherland's Lijst Pim Fortuyn (IPF) party reached the second powerful party position with votes in the range of 17%, despite having to proceed without its top candidate who had been murdered.'PimFortuyn definitely sights an enemy image in Islam, and today, it may be considered as a prototype of anti-Islamist trended populism' (Hartleb, 2011: 15).Pim Fortuyn argued that the increasing effect of Islam would weaken the cultural values of Netherland in the long term.For this reason, Fortuyn demanded restrictions of internal migration.Fortuyn left clear traces behind with this anti-Islamist route (Hartleb, 2011: 16).The anti-Islamist Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), established by Geert Wilders in 2006, has been successful for years and increased its votes to 15.5% in 2010.It is rumoured that Wilder is a friend of Israel, as he is always ready for reconciliations.He was obliged to give an account before his country's courts because of his rude criticisms of Islam (Hartleb, 2011: 16).
As is the case with Austria, in the Netherlands, as well, there are a number of national particularities regarding the Dutch right-wing populist movement that cannot simply be generalised with regard to the whole of Europe.In recent years, this movement has been closely linked to the charismatic person of Geert Wilders.Consequently, both his political stances and in particular this man's image have strongly influenced the strategy as well as the perception of the Netherland's right-wing populist movement (Albertazzi and McDonnel, 2015: 175).In his appearance, Wilders communicates an affiliation to a bourgeois milieu.In this context, it should be noted that Islamophobia plays a crucial part in his political argumentation; with him, this is much more pronounced than is the case with other European right-wing populist leaders.In his political reasoning, Wilders practices a facet of modern right-wing extremism, which links Islamophobia to radical Zionism.Anti-Semitism is strongly rejected by Wilders, if, however, mostly in connection with Islam (Albertazzi and McDonnel, 2015: 179).Due to that constellation, the right-wing populist movement in the Netherlands practices a kind of "right-wing Anti-fascism" which generally equates Islam with certain ideological aspects of National Socialism.Within the scope of such an argumentation, Wilders succeeds in using the traditionally firmly anchored feelings of hatred of many Dutch people towards fascism, and particularly towards National fascism, for his propaganda.
In contrast to other European right-wing populist movements, the movement around Wilders hardly engages in traditional social democratic values.Instead, a bourgeois law-and-order-policy is pursued.In concrete xenophobic agitation, Wilders does mainly refer to Islamophobia, he also, however, plays with clichés from the country's colonial past and thus succeeds in utilising deeply hidden colonial racist resentments in all layers of the Dutch public (Albertazzi and McDonnel, 2015: 179).Also in contrast to other European right-wing populist movements, Wilders clearly distances himself from traditional right-wing extremist electorates and very consciously leaves those to small splinter parties in the right margin, or to separatist splinter groups.

Hungary
The rightist radicalism has a long tradition in the political history of the Hungarian (Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2012: 255).Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, also known as Jobbik, as an excessive rightist Hungarian party that has continued its existence for approximately 10 years.The party describes itself as a conservative, radical and patriotic party focussed on Christian values.During the 2014 parliamentary elections, the party received 20.5% of Hungarian votes (Kalnoky, 2014).Jobbik gained sympathy among college students (http://derstandard.at/1360681747782/Ungarn-Rechtsradikale-Jobbik-unter-Studentenbeliebteste-Partei).
Besides the Jobbik party, a strong right-wing populist force has formed around current Prime Minister Orban in recent years.This force refrains from taking on traditional right-wing extremist positions, manages, however, to turn the strongly traditional anti-communism that can be found among the Hungarian people into an anti-European direction.This -at first glance quite astonishing ideological transformation -can be viewed as a national particularity of Hungary's right-wing populism.At the core can be found the utilisation of the anti-imperialist resentments among Hungarian people which, in former times were aimed at the Soviet Union and which today, are to be aimed at the European Union (Drews-Sylla, 2015: 118).
A further facet of Orban's right-wing populism can be seen in the rather scrupulous mobilisation of anti-Semitic effects among the Hungarian people, particularly among bourgeois milieus, but also in parts of the Hungarian Precariat.Orban takes up those resentments with a ruthlessly shortened anti-capitalist rhetoric.This is aimed against the "International capital" and therefore quite bluntly also aims at anti-Semitic anticapitalist reflexes (Drews-Sylla, 2015: 120).Orban himself can refer to a past as a so-called civil rights campaigner during communist times.Equipped with such a legitimisation, Orban succeeded in selling even the most ferocious national protectionist utterances and measures as an expression of a bourgeois stance and even as "economic liberalisation".
Orban's extreme anti-European stance furthermore created a conflict with institutions of the European Union, which, in the sense of national self-assertion, is used and exploited by increasingly governmentcensored media.Also, the conflict with Germany, which inevitable arose from the anti-European stance, is exploited propagandistically.Quite consistent with large parts of European right-wing populism, Angela Merkel has been made a bogeyman by Orban's propaganda.This also became apparent in his politics during the so-called refugee crisis in the summer of 2015 (Bayrakli and Hafez, 2016: 230).
Besides the right-wing populist movement in Austria, the Hungarian movement has currently reached the highest degree of penetration of the state apparatus.Due to constitutional changes, but also due to strong support from large parts of the Hungarian public, these developments seem irreversible in the medium term.

Greece
In Greece, right-wing populism has not played a noticeable role in the years after the Second World War.Political arguments have been characterised by bipolarity, if also with an underlying (corrupt) reconciliation of interests between the labour movement and an extremely conservative, militaristic bourgeois political movement, which, in the 1960s and 1970s, openly flirted with fascism.The military as well, along with its dictatorial movements was integrated into this bourgeois-conservative power (Blink-horn, 2003: 204).
Right-wing populist tendencies first show in Greece around 2008 with the collapse of traditional political parties.A number of splinter groups were founded in order to attract disappointed voters of traditional parties by means of chauvinist paroles, an extreme anti-Europeanism and a so-called modern right-wing extremism.These parties, however, did not achieve more than a marginal existence.
The core problem of Greek right-wing populism consists in the fact that the explicitly fascist party "Golden Dawn" absorbs the majority of extreme right-wing resentments.Additionally, the left-wing and left-wing liberal powers in this country succeeded in developing a powerful left-wing populism, which, thanks to a shortened anti-capitalism, latent anti-Semitism, a demonstrative anti-Europeanism, and also by addressing social issues, is quite successful.In this constellation, there's only very little margin for the already highly splintered Greek right-wing populists (Aalberg, 2016: 195).
Significant political influence was gained by the Greek right-wing populists by forming a coalition with leftwing populists.This way, the right-wing populist movement in Greece succeeded in making itself indispensable for the left-wing populist camp.This is all the truer since left-wing populists as well as former communists cannot possibly form a coalition with their direct political opponent -the fascists and national socialists of the "Golden Dawn".To this day, the Greek working class fears a radical Nationalism so much that a coalition with (rather weak) right-wing populists remains largely without an alternative.

Belgium
The mid-1980s brought Belgium new populist rightist parties, such as Vlaams Blok and the National Front, which were established according to the French model and remained unimportant.The Vlaams Blok aimed for the independence of the Flandern state.He dreamt about an ethnically and autonomously more homogenous Flandern state by dismissing non-EU citizen foreigners and subjecting the EU citizen foreigners to obligatory assimilation.Through limitation struggles of settled parties, the party continuously gains consistent successes.The Belgium courts have undoubtedly determined the ethnocentrism of Vlaams Blok.The party has reacted by moderating its program and changing its name to Vlaams Belang (Vlaams Unity of Benefits Party) (http://derstandard.at/2446289).

Switzerland
Since the 1990's, Christoph Blocher has been responsible for the rising of the rightist populism.The entrepreneur converted the liberal-conservative SVP to the rightist populist party.In 1999, during the National Assembly elections, this party became successful in gaining 22.5% of the vote, and during the next four years, it gained 26.8% of the vote.Consequently, it is apparently achieving powerful party status in terms of voter rates and seat numbers.But in the subsequent years, although Blocher increased the tempo of SVP in the elections, he experienced a painful defeat in the Swiss Federal Assembly.He achieved its party's acceptance with an SVP head of government jointly with a middle-left alliance (Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2012: 171).

Italy
In 2000, Italy's Lega Nord party under the leadership of Umberto Bossi, the Forza Italia under the leadership of populist entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi and the neo-fascists of the Alleanza Nazionale party successfully entered parliament.Eventually, accusations against Berlusconi for corruption ended the alliance.Since 2001, Silvio Berlusconi has been re-elected as Italy's Prime Minister.After subversion of the Prodi government in backdated parliament elections, Berlusconi and Fini in 2008, Alleanza Nazionale (or Popolo della Libertà) and the Forza Italia list, announced that they would participate in joint elections.(Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2012: 153).
The economic and financial crises, together with the corruption scandals involving Berlusconi, caused the establishment of a new order during the 2013 parliamentary elections.The current middle-left alliance under the leadership of Bersani gained the relative majority in the Senate and the absolute majority in the parliament (http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/regierungsbildung-in-italien-letta-wagt-das-mitterechts-buendnis-2003464.html).
In the European parliamentary elections of 2014, 50% of electors (57% throughout Europe) did not go to the ballot boxes as the rate of non-voters is high in the eastern European nations.Antipathy is specifically high in the nations that have recently participated in the EU.Only 13% in Slovakia, less than 25% electors in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Croatia participated in the election.Great Britain, France and Denmark witnessed the excessive rightist parties gaining a dominant power.These parties are distinguished with double-digit rates in Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Hungary.In Sweden and Greece, the rightist populists have captured approximately 10% of the vote (https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2014/05/29/euwa-m29.html).When generally considered, the European Parliament has transformed the elections to a protest election (http://fnfeurope.org/2014/06/10/europas-politische-krise-eine-liberale-wahlanalyse/).Ultimately, then, Europe shifted to the right.While different rightist parties maintain approximately 50 delegates in the European Parliament, this number will increase to 80 in the future.Even though the reasons for this are seen differently at the national level, rage against immigrants and future anxiety exercise influence over the majority (http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-05/rechte-parteien-europawahl).
Explanations of the anxieties by the united rightists in Europe are insubstantial from the first phase because the rightist parties try to separate themselves from other rightist parties through public opinion in each motherland.Nationalism prevents co-operation against joint contents.

Reply of the research question: The context between the economic crisis and the successes of the rightist populist parties
Many explanations can be found in scientific literature about the election successes of rightist parties, with some points completely explained.Modernisation and globalisation or purification from a national identity is considered a reason in terms of joint viewpoints (Nauenburg, 2005: 3).Interpretation of the development of the rightist populist parties as a consequence of extensive support given to their ethnocentric, chauvinist and authoritarian programs may be wrong.The thing that throws electors into the arms of rightist parties is the social desperation and disappointment (https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2014/05/29/euwa-m29.html).
The remarkable situation is that research conducted in 2005 does not indicate a clear and meaningful individual relationships between the people who lost because of globalisation and the election successes of the rightist populist parties.Anxiety about the future always plays a role but does not solely constitute the reason (Nauenburg, 2005: 22).Therefore, it must be agreed that a combination consisting of national budgets out of control due to the world financial and economic crises has caused this trend.In other words, as the states succeed in maintaining social security and a feeling of equal treatment, it appears that the unpleasant public outcry can be kept under control.
States have begun the process of reducing their budgets and decreasing their social expenditures-or, at least, they have announced that they would decrease their social expenditures.The result is a wider gap unilaterally opening in a manner in which it will never again close in the direction of 'while the rich people become richer, the poor and middle class may retain its own level'.With the real fall in the welfare levels of middle-low class layers of society, radicalism has begun.Solving a social problem in terms of social solidarity is completely the benefit of the community of states and its political representatives.

Solution approaches for the settled parties
However, another major related problem is the absence of replies given by and confidential measures taken by the other settled parties whether they are social democrat, socialist, conservative, liberal, conservationist or leftist.In this context, a reference can be made once more to the commonality of the identity crisis of European values.As long as the solution of political, social and economic problems on the European plane do not achieve success, the danger of the joining of rightist parties who have reached the political decision-making process arises.
The most important approach for the settled parties is that they may compulsorily sharpen their profiles to protect their ability to be distinguished from each other.With this rationale, the protection of social justice and welfare in the context of the global economy is the aim.To shift members of one party to other parties requires reforms in the intra-party structures and more transparency in regulating.In literature and in practice (for instance, Geert Wilders), many suggestions are provided on how to attractively organise the membership of a party.In this sense, the decision-making structures must be kept effective by binding members to the party in the most suitable manner (Hartleb, 2011: 66).

Conclusion
The EU countries do not want to give up their independencies as in old days.As long as the believing in nationalist movements become more powerful than the sense of belonging to the European Union and associated countries keep their own targets above the shared targets, no shared identity can be established.Because of the stated identity crisis, EU cannot act as a whole and go far from being only a "Unity of States".Strengthening of cooperation within EU and development of a supranational democracy is important in the establishment of a common political perspective.
The cosmopolite reality requires being respectful to the culture and living rights of other people.The road going towards the direction of establishing a shared identity remains blocked and the current problems and crises move the big Europe dream towards various interstate and intrastate disagreements.For example, the rightist-populist Freedom Party under Hein-Christian Strache entered 2017 the government in Austria after a coalition deal with the conservatives led by Sebastian Kurz.Due to the anti-immigration and anti-EU statements of the Freedom Party and the desire of the conservatives to cooperate with such movements, a domino-effect can be expected in the member-states of the European Union.Another example for the success of far-right parties in Europe is the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), which won seats in the German parliament after the national elections of 2017.