Sputnik: How dangerous is the rise of right political parties in Europe and in the UK in particular?
Dr. Jochen Staadt: We have the problem of disintegration, which is connected with the rise of the radical political parties and I think this is the problem that parts of European societies are not any more part of the European process, they want to step out of the European process, we've seen that in Great Britain when they decided to leave the European Union and we can see that these parties that oppose the European Union's bureaucracy get stronger and stronger in different countries.
Sputnik: What are the political views and goals of the right-wing political parties in Europe, are the right-wing parties a real threat do you perceive?
Sputnik: How true is it that the right-wing fosters the culture of looking for scapegoats rather than the culture of solving problems, a culture of looking up to a big father of the nation instead of thinking with their own head, what's your take on that?
Dr. Jochen Staadt: I think you have that as a part of the arguments on the basis of the parties and they have a lot of arguments of hate against other people coming into the countries, but I think it is not the main question that we have, the main question is that the traditional parties aren't able anymore to integrate parts of the society who are dissatisfied with the policies of governments in the countries, the right-wing parties can use this situation to tell their followers that “we will solve the problems in a radical way and we will help find ways out of the situation in which we are now facing the situation with migration.” You have countries like the former Eastern bloc countries that are opposing generally the migration policy of the European Union in Brussels.
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Sputnik: Can the rise of right-wing parties in Europe be explained solely by migration policies alone and what is the core of the ideology of the current radical right?
Dr. Jochen Staadt: It's one of the main topics they have, the other one is the situation in the countries is that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the policies of the bureaucracy in Brussels, but you have local, special local situations that are also responsible for why these parties have gained a lot of followers in the last years, so you have to look at the situation in the country where they were able to come into the parliaments and earn a lot of votes of dissatisfied people.
Sputnik: Is economy secondary to right-wing parties and used to emphasize other parts of their ideology?
Dr. Jochen Staadt: In rural regions, for example, where the policy of the European Union had consequences for example for peasants, for farmers, the economic question is one of the issues far-right parties use to agitate in these parts of the countries, but generally they use the economic questions as part of agitation when they think it will help them.
Sputnik: We've seen some right-wing parties grow and develop in certain European countries such as France and Austria that have strong radical right-wing parties, but Spain, for example, doesn't, why is that the case?
Dr. Jochen Staadt: In Spain we have the special situation that after the end of the Franco regime, parts of bureaucracy and of the followers of the Franco regime were integrated into the conservative party, the Popular and so there's no space for a right-wing movement besides this party since then, and we had the same situation in Germany when you think of Bavaria there was no space for right-wing parties besides the Christian Social Union in Bavaria because it had a right-wing orientation.
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