Right-wing extremism has become a virulent phenomenon in Central and Eastern Europe in the last years. Political parties like Hungary’s Jobbik and Ataka in Bulgaria won seats in national parliaments and succeeded in dominating parts of the political discourses. In the following weeks the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung publishes a set of studies presenting the situation in most of the countries of the region by identifying the actors of right-wing extremism, their influence on the respective political landscape and state-driven or civil society-based counterstrategies.

In Poland, the extreme right does not have its own representation on the level of a parliamentary political party, because the mainstream populist conservative party, Law and Justice (PiS) absorbed a big portion of the radical nationalist ideology and cadres during the last years. Polish extreme-right groups subscribe to a Catholic fundamentalist ideology combined with a strongly radical ethnic version of nationalism including anti-Semitism.