When Trump won the US elections in 2025, many analysts and points of sale saw his victory catalyzed a swing on the right among European voters: with right -wing leaders and movements through Europe celebrating his victory, considering it as an approval of their positions on questions such as immigration or climate change, and hoping that this will allow this to allow their own parties.
On the other hand, after the announcement of the “release day” of European export prices, and the abrasive meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump, others thought there could be a negative effect on the right parts and a recovery of the left.
However, according to Recent research By the Brussels based reflection group, European Policy Center – which assessed survey data and political events across Europe before and after Trump's elections – showed that in fact, Trump has no effect on European voting models.
“At the electoral level, the EU is very independent of the United States. European voting behavior is mainly influenced by internal factors and do not vary according to American political movements,” said Javier Carbonell, EPC expert and one of the study co-authors. This is not true in each sector – markets and technological regulations, he said, are more closely linked to American dynamics – but “Trump has not changed voting preferences in Europe”.
At the local level
At the local level, support for the parties to the right of the European People's Party group showed very few changes between October 2024 and April 2025, according to the study. Most countries, such as Austria, Germany, Spain and Portugal, have maintained constant electoral support.
Some countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Italy have constantly shown high support for the right -wing parts, but this support remained stable throughout these months. Other countries with lower -right support, such as Sweden, Slovenia, Denmark and Finland, have also not experienced significant changes.
Romania has been an exception to the rule, however, said the authors of the report. “We did not include it in the study database because there were reliability problems with the electoral data after the cancellation of the results,” said Carbonell, quoting the presidential election of Romania in 2024.
Overall, through Europe, the average level of support for voters for the more right parties has remained around 24 to 25%, which also suggests that Trump's victory has had a minimum local impact.
Meanwhile, public opinion turned against Trump: according to a survey by the Grand Continent and the Cluster 17, only 6% to 8% of German, Spanish and French citizens perceive it as an “ally”. And in countries like Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France, the indices following the reputation of the United States showed a decrease between 20 and 30 percentage points, according to Yougov. It is not surprising, according to the study, affirming that Trump's economic policies harm the voting basics also favorable to right -wing ideas, such as those in the cognac and wine sectors in France and Italy.
Make Europe great again?
Trump's attempts to mobilize tropes also had a limited impact, according to the report. The examples include a summit “Make Europe Great Again” organized by Spain Vox in Madrid, or the interview with Elon Musk with Alice Weidel of AFD.
“These efforts have not failed, but they were thwarted,” said Carbonell.
“Unlike Canada, where Trump’s victory had an impact on the resumption of the Liberal Party and the decline of the Conservative Party, the European voters law according to internal factors,” Carbonll said.
“Our research has indicated that support for the right and extreme right in the EU comes from internal factors, which could be: weak economic growth, an increase in inequality, cultural changes linked to diversity and migration, and a strong distrust of the political system,” said Tabea Schaumann, colleague expert in the EPC and co-study. “There is also a backlash against the progress of sustainability, feminism and the policy of diversity. And each country has its particularities; In Spain, for example, the territorial conflict with Catalonia is an important factor. ”
