Will June’s EU elections see an unstoppable rise of the far right?

On 6 June, 400 million citizens across 27 EU member states will go to the polls to elect the next European parliament. Voters are expected to push the block further to the ideological right, changing the political direction of Europe’s institutions on key issues like climate, defense and migration. “The shift to the far right is about western society’s changing social identity. When people vote, they’re not thinking about class or economic issues anymore, they care about culture and identity issues. There has been a shift away from politics of redistribution towards politics of recognition, and from class to culture”, explains Francesco Pasetti, research fellow in migration at Spanish thinktank Barcelona Centre for International Affairs.