Far-right parties gain ground in European politics

The fact that they can express extreme views with "a veneer of acceptability" actually makes today's far-right leaders more dangerous than yesterday's skinheads, says Simon Tilford, chief economist for the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank that favours European integration. Today, there's a greater sense of unease about Europe's place in a globalised economy, Tilford says. To the extent that far-right parties that can speak to that unease in ways that come off as reasonable, they can not only capitalise on it politically, but potentially force other politicians to adopt similar language or sentiments. "The far-right movements that we're seeing - not all of them, but a few of them - pose a greater challenge than those we saw in the 1980s and 1990s", Tilford says. "They're expressing extreme positions but in a far more polished way, and there's a danger of such views becoming more socially acceptable."