All are welcome, says the door of the church in the quiet Dutch town of Sint Vilebrord, where neighbors greet each other from tidy verandas overlooking manicured lawns.
However, that announcement about tolerance seems strangely out of place.
Fueled by economic and cultural anxieties that have fueled fears of immigrants, people here and across the Netherlands have turned politically to the far right. It is an extreme example of a trend being felt across the continent that could determine the outcome of this year's European Union legislative elections.
In Sint Velebroord, which has few immigrants among its 9.300 residents, nearly three out of four voters chose the fiercely anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party in elections last year that damaged the Netherlands' image as a welcoming moderate country.
Analysts say far-right parties, now the sixth-largest group in the European Parliament, are poised to win seats and more influence over EU policies affecting everything from civil rights to gender issues to immigration.
The Freedom Party, led by radical Geert Wilders, won nearly a quarter of all votes - in a country where Muslims make up less than five percent of the population - with slogans such as "no Islamic schools, the Koran or mosques" and "no open borders and mass immigration that does not we can afford”.
Voters across Europe are increasingly empowering leaders like Wilders who promise to limit immigration and, in some cases, curtail democratic freedoms: religion, expression, the right to protest.
These forces grew to varying degrees in one country at a time, including Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, and Austria. However, experts worry that they could soon dramatically reshape the continent from the top down.
In June, voters in the 27 EU member states will elect the next parliament for a five-year term. Analysts say far-right parties, now the sixth-largest group in the European Parliament, are poised to win seats and more influence over EU policies affecting everything from civil rights to gender issues to immigration.
"People have unresolved scores with the 'old politics,'" said Rem Korteweg, a senior researcher at the Klingendael Research Institute in The Hague.
In the Netherlands, long a haven for issues such as drug use, end-of-life decisions and gender identity issues, this settling of accounts paved the way for Wilders' shrill voice. "The vote for Wilders was clearly a protest vote," Korteweg said.
In some other European countries, the shift to the right went even further and began to erode the foundations of democracy.
In Hungary and Serbia, the recent elections were free but not fair, democracy experts say, because the ruling parties captured the media, courts and electoral authorities. The EU has withheld funds from Hungary and Poland as punishment for backsliding in the rule of law.
And in the Netherlands and beyond, politicians like Wilders have built support on promises not to treat everyone as equal before the law. It is often translated as: keep strangers away.
"There is a clear trend towards an anti-immigrant policy," Korteweg said. "And in some countries, it has already allowed the radical right to gain power.
As costs rise, so does anger
Support for Wilders' Freedom Party has more than doubled since the last Dutch election in 2021. With 23 percent of the vote, Wilders has a good chance of leading any future governing coalition.
Nowhere did Wilders get more support than in Rucphen, a city in the south of the Netherlands to which Sint Willebrord belongs and where for the first time more than half of the voters chose Wilders' party. In 2012, his party won 27 percent of the vote in that city.
For a quarter of a century, voters across the Netherlands have grown increasingly disaffected as successive governments, despite high taxes, have been unable to stop cuts to the lifelong benefits citizens have come to expect for things like education, health care and pensions.
"It's as if people are being forced to vote for Wilders," said 80-year-old Walter de Jong, who has worked as a baker all his life. He said he was forced to close shop last year due to rising costs and strict government regulations.
“Everything goes backwards. Every year it gets worse," De Jong said. He previously supported outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Free Market Party, but decided not to vote in the last election.
The decline in the Dutch standard of living coincided with an increase in immigration. Most came from Ukraine and other former Soviet states. A smaller number came from countries like Syria and Turkey. Two decades ago, the Netherlands had a net outflow of migrants, but by 2022 this has risen to an inflow of 224.000 in a country of 17,5 million.
The Netherlands has also been hit hard by a cost-of-living crisis that affects everything from healthcare prices to food. Inflation fueled inequality and pushed some lower-middle-class families into poverty.
The decline in the Dutch standard of living coincided with an increase in immigration. Most came from Ukraine and other former Soviet states
The income needed to buy a first home has risen much faster than earnings, according to a 2022 study by Dutch lender Rabobank.
"Housing is a political failure. It's very true and very real," said Tom Theuns of Leiden University. "And then you have a populist who says, 'Okay, the reason is that asylum seekers are given priority.' Even if this is a lie, this is how immigration is connected through racist messages. It is a sacrificial lamb.”
Wilders expressed this way of thinking in his election program: “Why are asylum seekers first in line when looking for scarce accommodation? It has to stop".
His supporters blamed Rute's ruling coalition for these problems.
It's a pattern repeated by voters in many European countries, Theuns said.
"And one of the places where those voices too often go are radical right-wing parties that play on social and economic issues, at least in their discourse," adds Theuns.
Avoid or embrace populism
For the traditional parties of the European right and center left, the success of populist messages is a challenge.
In the past, many of them considered newcomers to be dangerous predators bent on destruction. A favorite analogy for dealing with them was a “sanitary cordon”, a protective barrier set up to stop the spread of infectious diseases. Politically speaking, this meant not forming coalitions with them.
In Belgium, this strategy was used to isolate far-right nationalists, and in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party was kept at a distance.
However, under the leadership of Le Pen's daughter, Marin, the National Front, which was renamed the National Gathering, was no longer ostracized. In November, she was welcomed at a protest march against growing anti-Semitism. This has led critics to use the unpleasant German term - "salonfähig" - to describe a former outcast who has been welcomed into polite society.
"Salonfähig" is often used to describe how the Nazis, who were initially rejected, eventually managed to enter mainstream politics, before taking over power completely on the eve of World War II.
In the Netherlands, the formation of a majority coalition with Wilders' party was considered unthinkable not so long ago.
In 2010, Wilders' party supported a minority Dutch government. However, Wilders did not give up his anti-immigrant rhetoric, and after a year and a half of arguments, the cooperation was terminated.
But then the mood on the continent began to change. Europe's migration crisis in 2015 was an opening for far-right politics after the EU's faltering response to the arrival of around 100.000 asylum seekers each month.
Wilders' anti-immigrant rhetoric began to resonate even more. Last year, the number of migrants arriving in the 27-nation bloc through irregular routes, such as dinghies crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, was at its highest level since 2016, according to data from Frontex, the EU's border agency.
In July, Mark Rutte's majority coalition fell apart over his handling of immigration, and his successor as leader of the VVD party hinted that Wilders could again be a talking point.
"Suddenly, a vote for Wilders was no longer a wasted vote," said Korteweg of the Clingendael Research Center. "And Wilders experienced a rise in popularity in the polls.
In December, a member of Wilders' party became the speaker of the parliament, marking a breakthrough in political acceptance. There is now a real prospect of his far-right party joining or even leading the majority ruling coalition.
Sensing an opportunity for greater strength, Wilders said he would be willing to put his most abrasive points "temporarily in the refrigerator."
Sensing an opportunity for more power, Wilders declared that he would be ready to temporarily put his most provocative views "in the fridge".
Political rivals are skeptical. "When you put something in the fridge, put it in there to take out fresh later," said Frans Timmermans, a longtime center-left leader in Dutch politics who ran against Wilders in November's election.
Political analysts say what is happening in countries like the Netherlands could be a foreshadowing of the outcome of the European Parliament elections in June.
Instead of far-right parties being drawn to the center, it is possible that the center will tilt to the right.
"And this is perhaps the biggest danger for Europe," said Korteweg from Clingendael. "On the one hand, such coalitions could soften the sharpest edges of those politicians. But on the other hand, there is a huge risk of normalizing such parties".
Prepared by: A. Šofranac
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