Voters in 28 countries will have the chance in the next four days to seat 751 representatives in the European Parliament for the next five years. The polls project heavy losses for the center-right European People's Party, currently the largest group in parliament with 274 seats. The multi-nation coalition may be overtaken by the second-largest group, the center-left Socialists & Democrats, though the center-anything is projected to shrink sharply in favor of various fringe groups.
The U.K. Independence Party, running on the single issue of extracting Britain from the European Union, is expected to win one-third of the U.K.'s 73 seats. French voters are set to give nearly one-quarter of their 74 seats to the anti-immigrant National Front. The upstart "Alternative für Deutschland" is polling around 6% for Germany's 96 seats, after forming last year on an anti-euro platform. The anti-immigrant Freedom Parties of Austria and the Netherlands are also polling well, as is Hungary's radical nationalist Jobbik.
The prospect of these groups gaining ground is not—or not yet—proof that Europeans have collectively gone off a political ledge. Turnout for these elections hasn't broken 50% since 1994 and is expected to barely scrape 40% this week. Nor is the supposed rise of the European "far right" the unified phenomenon it might appear. Populists of different stripes are lumped together for their shared tactic of dumping on EU bureaucrats and the mainstream parties that enable them.
Jobbik's priorities include "protecting" Hungarian farmland from foreign buyers and investigating the "security risk" posed by resident Jewish nationals. The Dutch and Austrian Freedom Parties are broadly okay with private commerce, and mostly limit their anti-immigrant views to Muslims. UKIP's Nigel Farage opposes wealth redistribution for most purposes, and especially to fund pan-European transfers and welfare for immigrants. Marine Le Pen's National Front, meanwhile, pits itself just to the left of the Socialists in most economic matters, and targets EU-prescribed welfare cutting as the root of French economic malaise.
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Chairman of the far-right parliamentary JOBBIK (Better) party Gabor Vona (C) reacts for the result of the parliamentary election with his party members at Budapest Congress Center in Budapest on April 6.Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Their protest-voters are united mainly in their outrage at the failure of the political elite to provide any notable improvement in economic opportunity. In the latest Eurobarometer poll, 65% of respondents believed their national economy to be "rather bad" or "very bad," with 49% ranking unemployment as one of the top two most pressing issues, followed by "the economic situation" (29%) and inflation (20%). For all the talk of rising European xenophobia, only 11% of respondents cited immigration as a top issue; in most countries foreigners ranked far below taxes and crime as urgent concerns.
In this regard, the British are outliers, having ranked immigration (25%) as the second-most important issue after unemployment (33%). That may explain why UKIP is campaigning primarily against the droves of Romanian criminals supposedly plaguing Britain. By contrast, 9% of French respondents care much about immigration, and only 4% of Dutch. Hungarians, for all of Jobbik's terrifying rhetoric, are by far most concerned about unemployment, the economy and crime, in that order. Germans are worried most of all by the prospect of inflation.
There is talk of a post-election alliance between the Dutch and Austrian Freedom Parties and the French National Front, which could produce a blocking minority in the European Parliament for some pan-European policy areas. But these parties have already rejected the idea of linking up with Jobbik. Mr. Farage, for his part, has ruled out any partnership between his UKIP and Ms. Le Pen's National Front. And the new German "Alternative" party—which opposes the "failed" euro currency but not the EU—won't ally with any of these groups.
Unified or not, Europe's fringes look set to become a little less fringe after this weekend. Their popularity reflects a failure at the heart of Europe, both political and technocratic, to improve the prospects of average Europeans. Parties don't have to be coherent or even sane to win protest votes. The best way for the European mainstream to deflate these parties is to learn to grow their economies again.