In the Nordic countries, the European elections were a success for the left. The far right declined in Finland and Sweden, while in Denmark the racist Danish People’s Party continued to lose support and Venstre, the country’s largest traditional centre-right party, fell by almost 9 percentage points.
In Denmark, the Socialist People’s Party (SF) became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2% compared to the 2019 EU elections. The left-wing Unity List (Red-Green Alliance) also made progress in the election, winning a total of 7%. Almost one in four voters thus voted for parties to the left of the ruling Social Democratic Party, which had its worst election in over 120 years. The two other governing parties, Venstre and Moderaterne, also fell back.
The far-right Danish People’s Party (DF), which became the country’s largest party in the European elections ten years ago with more than 26% of the vote, plummeted to 6.4% in this year’s EU elections. However, the Danish Democrats, a new racist party, won over 7% of the vote.
In Finland, workers’ struggles against the right-wing government, which includes the racist Finns Party, boosted the Left Alliance, which became the country’s second largest party with 17.3% (up 10.4%) of the vote. The largest party was the traditional right-wing National Coalition Party.
The Left Alliance’s share of the vote was almost 3 percentage points higher than that of the Social Democrats, which became the third largest party.
The popularity of the Left Alliance’s main candidate in the election, party leader Li Anderson, also contributed to the party’s rise in the election, despite having moved to the right.
For the far-right True Finns, which holds the position of finance minister in the government led by the National Coalition Party, the EU election was a historic loss. The party lost 6.2% compared to the 2019 EU elections and became the sixth largest party in the election.
In Sweden, the racist Sweden Democrats also declined and the Left Party had a historically good election. Unlike in other countries, the Green Party in Sweden also made progress in the EU elections. The vote of no confidence in the Swedish blue-brown government in the EU elections is an encouraging sign for new campaign initiatives against racism and militarism — for welfare, and the climate, which can lay the foundations for a movement to bring down the blue-brown government.
