In recent years, and especially since the outbreak of COVID-19, a progressive spread of right-wing extremist ideologies and activities can be observed in many European countries. Based on this perception, the Media Programme South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Sofia Security Forum have initiated a project that aims to capture and analyse the topic of "right-wing extremism in South East Europe and the role of media and social networks" from a scientific perspective. The six field studies were conducted in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Northern Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia.
“Right-wing extremists become strong when people are afraid - when they fear a loss of orientation, alleged foreign infiltration, or even future developments”, says Hendrik Sittig, Head of the Media Programme South East Europe of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. "Right-wing extremism is a social pandemic that not only divides people but is also dangerous, sometimes even fatal. There is no place for that in our democratic society!"
Peter Knoope, an expert on security, defence, and counter-terrorism as well as a former director of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), also addressed the topic of fear. Fear leads to securitization - the perception of an issue as a security problem – and an extended security policy is being perceived as "normal" by citizens: "Mistrust has become a basic attitude of governments. In the new reality citizens are suspects by default."
During the presentation of the results of the single country studies, it became clear that right-wing extremism in South East Europe has frighteningly many and different faces, can hardly be systematically recorded nor described, and spreads differently from country to country. From the experts' point of view, this is a particularly worrying result and requires further scientific research to be able to take adequate action against it. Despite its different forms and spread, right-wing extremism is not classified as a threat to state security in the six South East European countries, summarised Yordan Bozhilov, President of the Sofia Security Forum, at the end of the presentations.
The entire in-depth study will be available for download on our website at the end of this year.