Concern about the prospects of the far-right in the June 2009 European Parliament is increasing to the extent that some voices are being raised against exaggerating these prospects – "feeding the party with the oxygen of publicity" as the Independent editorialised about the British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin.
"Stop talking up the comical BNP," the Telegraph said of what it described as a "small, angry and hate-filled party".

It is not accurate to paint all of the far-right parties within the EU with the same brush, given that some are more radical in their outlook and messages than others, but the story of their apparently ever-improving chances in the elections is becoming a key narrative as the voting days approach.

In response to the trend, prominent voices have been raised, urging the bloc’s hundreds of millions of voters to turn out and make choices somewhat more mainstream than the extremist messages emanating from some quarters.

Arguably the most shocking instance was a television advertisement broadcast in the Czech Republic by the far-right National Party which called for a "final solution to the Gypsy problem", a message that went out in parallel to the party’s calls against "black racism" and "favouritism" towards Roma. The advert drew a sharp response in the Czech Republic, and while the public broadcaster said that it was obliged by law to air the adverts of a registered party, the government said that it would not allow the advert – which has echoes of Nazi Germany’s Holocaust "final solution" genocide of Jews – to be aired again.

After the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a statement calling on people not to be discouraged from voting by the expenses scandal in the UK, and to cast their votes against extremism – "this is not a moment for voting in favour of any political party whose core ideology is about sowing division in our communities on grounds of race, creed or colour," the clerics said – the Simon Wiesenthal Centre – Europe urged its members to go to the polls.

"Low voter turnout serves extremist parties, inter alia the British BNP, the French Front National, the newly established Anti-Zionist Party, the Greek LAOS and the Polish League of Families," Simon Samuels, director of the Paris-based centre, said, according to a report by the European Jewish Press on May 26.

The French Front National, founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been alleged to deny or minimise the Holocaust, while the Anti-Zionist Party was reported to be at risk for being banned under French laws against anti-Semitism. LAOS leader Georgios Karatzaferis, while having signed a statement acknowledging the Holocaust, earlier reportedly made statements referring to the "Auschwitz and Dachau myths", said that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a blood-libel document long since proved a forgery – were being put into effect, and allegedly said that Jews were behind the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. The party also has been alleged to be homophobic.

The League of Polish Families, avowedly anti-EU, opposes gay marriage, foreign ownership of land and, allegedly according to some authors, is anti-Semitic.
After a Eurobarometer survey done in April indicated that only about a third of the 375 million people eligible to vote in the 2009 European Parliament elections actually would go to the polls, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering said in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo: "If people don’t vote, the danger is that there will be more extremist parties or from outside the mainstream…I call on our citizens to vote for parties that support European unity and who respect human beings".

Professor Mark Franklin, chairperson of the European Election Studies steering group, was quoted by Deutsche Welle as saying: "A low turnout would certainly have implications in terms of niche or radical fringe parties. This is where the expressive voters come in. They may make a choice to vote for a far-right or far-left party because…they believe it won’t make a difference. They wouldn’t do this in national elections because it may have an impact, but in Europe…who cares?"

In the Netherlands, there has been a prominent focus on Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom rails against Islam in Europe and against immigration, wants Bulgaria and Romania booted out the EU (an entity which, in any case, Wilders wants to "bring down from the inside") and is fiercely against Turkey ever being admitted to the EU – a position Wilders and his party shares with Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist Ataka, although for that matter, stated opposition to Turkey joining the EU as a full member is also a position held by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel.