Identity Movements as New Face of the Radical Right

Identity movements have been spreading across the European nationalist stream in the last few years. In some countries this phenomenon is manifested by radicals as protest movements, in Germany and the Czech Republic using neo-Nazis themes. Identity movements voice the need to renew national identities and in particular European identities in their opposition to the EU integration process and to the threat of Islamisation. Xenophobia and racism are embedded in their call for a unified Europe, which is offered as an alternative Europe of free European nations. The paper will introduce these movements in Western (France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries) and Eastern Europe and will examine how identity is framed in national and European contexts.