Across the continent, the right’s rise is reshaping the political landscape – from Rome to Nicosia, and from Berlin to Warsaw. Europe is undergoing a profound conservative turn. From traditional right-wing parties to radical nationalists, the rise of the right is redrawing the continent’s political map. What began as electoral shifts has evolved into a broader cultural and psychological reorientation – a yearning for stability, identity, and belonging in times of uncertainty.
In Cyprus, this transformation mirrors the wider European trend. The Democratic Rally (DISY), ahead of parliamentary elections, fears voter drift towards the far-right ELAM and is adopting measures to counter it. The Social Democrats (EDEK) have already echoed ELAM’s anti-federalist rhetoric, underscoring how nationalist narratives are infiltrating the mainstream.
Across Europe, fatigue with globalisation, the migration crisis, and the lingering economic aftershocks of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have strengthened calls for “security” and “tradition.” Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has normalised the rhetoric of national pride; France’s Marine Le Pen promotes “patriotic realism”; Germany’s AfD continues to surge; and in Hungary and Poland, conservative ideology has already become state doctrine.
Even centrist and liberal governments have shifted tone. Emmanuel Macron speaks of sovereignty and borders; Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “order and progress.” Cyprus’s government under Nikos Christodoulides reflects this same tendency – to co-opt conservative language in a bid to retain voters. Europe’s “cultural counter-offensive” now dominates public discourse on migration, gender, and education.
Meloni’s victory in 2022 marked a symbolic moment: for the first time since WWII, a founding EU member is led by a party with post-fascist roots. Yet she presents herself as a defender of “Fatherland, Religion, Family.” Italy has become the model for a “new right” – more moderate in tone, but resolutely conservative in policy. Cyprus’s ELAM is openly inspired by this approach, attempting to shed its neo-fascist associations despite its origins in Greece’s criminal Golden Dawn movement.
In France, Marine Le Pen is closer than ever to power. Having softened her image, she now embodies a normalized far-right – nationalist, protectionist, yet palatable to the mainstream. Éric Zemmour pushes the debate even further rightward, influencing even Macron’s rhetoric.
In Cyprus, echoes of this “patriotic realism” resonate across the political spectrum. The government prioritises migration over existential challenges like water scarcity and climate change. With reservoirs nearly empty and farmers told to halt planting, rational policymaking has yielded to populist alarmism.
Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou recently acknowledged that Cyprus needs 300,000 foreign workers to sustain growth. Yet DISY has proposed a bill enabling deportations of foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes – a move critics say undermines isonomy, the principle of equality before the law, dating back to classical Greece.
The erosion of the centre
Germany, long seen as Europe’s liberal anchor, is witnessing an erosion of the political centre. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is breaking popularity records, particularly in the eastern Länder. Rising living costs, migration pressures, and energy insecurity have pushed voters toward conservative reflexes, challenging Germany’s post-war liberal consensus.
Hungary and Poland remain the strongholds of Europe’s orthodox conservatism. Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” elevates national identity and family above minority rights. Poland’s former ruling Law and Justice party pursued a similar path, fusing Catholicism with anti-immigrant rhetoric to consolidate power.
Why now?
Europeans feel they have lost control – over borders, markets, and communities. Conservatism offers psychological comfort and clear answers where liberalism offers complexity. The Left, fragmented and defensive, struggles to counter this appeal. The old progressive-versus-conservative dichotomy no longer captures social realities.
Yet the Right’s simplistic triad, Fatherland, Religion, Family – collapses under scrutiny. A nation cannot tackle global or migratory challenges alone; religion risks manipulation; and the family, under economic strain, cannot thrive without social stability, affordable housing, and childcare support.
Reclaiming Europe’s identity
The conservative wave will not fade soon. The question is not whether it will prevail, but in what form: democratic and institutional, or exclusionary and populist.
Europe’s answer must be more democracy, not less. Right-wing populism thrives on the sense that “Brussels elites” ignore ordinary citizens. Reconnecting through participation, equality, and social policy is essential.
If Europe wants to reclaim the language of identity and belonging, it must redefine them as inclusion, transparency, and solidarity – a European patriotism of values, not of exclusion. Only then might the continent balance freedom with belonging, and prevent its conservative turn from sliding into cultural regression.