Divided over Russia? Far-right contestation of EU enlargement

The EU’s long-debated enlargement is a key area of far-right contestation. However, despite sharing a number of common agenda items, the EU’s far right remains divided when it comes to the question of admitting further members. Why do some EU far-right parties contest enlargement, while others are more supportive? Drawing on an original dataset of enlargement-related statements made in the European Parliament (2009-2024), our analysis yields two main findings. First, despite a growing coherence in their opposition to enlargement overall, far-right parties remain divided in the discursive frames mobilised to justify their positions: while identity-related frames dominate far-right contestation of enlargement towards the Western Balkans, strategic arguments related to the EU’s positioning vis-à-vis Russia dominate in far-right statements on Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Second, we show that the identity-based contestation is primarily driven by certain national parties such as the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and—at least temporarily—the Rassemblement National (RN). Both AfD and RN are, alongside Fidesz, also the primary drivers of the strategic-based contestation, channelled through their sympathy towards Russia. These results shed new light on the fragmentation of far-right discourse on EU enlargement in recent years, hinting at these parties’ uneven contestations—a striking dissonance at a time when the far right is gaining weight and is increasingly able to shape, or at least undermine, policies at the EU level.