The attempted assassination of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico last week was only the latest act of politically motivated violence currently racking Europe.
The incidence of attacks has been ticking upward year over year across the Continent. Experts say that it is instigated by language used on social media, which ultimately presents a threat to democracy. The apparent lack of limits on what can now be said about a political opponent has made it easier for physical acts to emerge.
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When political vitriol stirs violence, how does society get the temperature back down? That’s a question Europe is struggling with right now amid a wave of attacks on politicians, including the prime minister of Slovakia.
In Germany in 2023, a parliamentary inquiry reported nearly 3,000 attacks on members of political parties, including 1,219 attacks reported against the Greens, 478 against the far-right Alternative for Germany, 420 against the Social Democrats, and 299 against the Free Democrats. The tally this year is on track to top those figures easily.
“Political debates have become very personal, aggressive, full of hatred, and it’s done with impunity,” says Soňa Muzikárová, a Slovakian political economist. “And then as people watch this and it becomes normalized, it also is mirrored in society. Logically, it’s a matter of time when and how this is going to bubble up in the physical space as well.”
Tim Wagner, a sitting member of German parliament, was hanging campaign posters for a liberal colleague when he was accosted on the streets of Eisenberg.
“It was a sunny Sunday, a quarter past 12. A man came up to me and said, ‘You can’t hang these posters here.’ I said, ‘Yes I can.’ He said, ‘We can fight over it,’” says Mr. Wagner, a Free Democrat.
The man – a sympathizer of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party – blocked Mr. Wagner’s path as he tried to leave. Mr. Wagner managed to get into his car, but the man and two others surrounded the vehicle and began kicking the car door.
Why We Wrote This
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When political vitriol stirs violence, how does society get the temperature back down? That’s a question Europe is struggling with right now amid a wave of attacks on politicians, including the prime minister of Slovakia.
“We are under attack from both sides, from the right and the left,” says Mr. Wagner, who’s been stalked and had strangers show up at his door. “But this time my 14-year-old daughter was sitting inside the car. She was shocked.”
It was only the latest act of politically motivated violence, the incidence of which has been ticking upward year over year not only in Germany but across Europe. Public attention has been drawn to the issue by the attempted killing of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico last week, the highest-level assassination attempt in decades.
But attacks on politicians had been on the upswing even earlier, instigated by polarizing language used on social media, which ultimately presents a threat to democracy, say experts. The apparent lack of limits on what can now be said about a political opponent has made it easier for physical acts to emerge. The upsurge in violence, they say, may usher in new period of reflection across Europe as a whole, especially as it heads into Continent-wide parliamentary elections next month.
“Political debates have become very personal, aggressive, full of hatred, and it’s done with impunity,” says Soňa Muzikárová, a Slovakian political economist at the Florence-based European University Institute. “And then as people watch this and it becomes normalized, it also is mirrored in society. Logically, it’s a matter of time when and how this is going to bubble up in the physical space as well. It’s kind of a perpetual feedback loop.”
A heated situation
There have been numerous incidents of politically motivated attacks in Germany just over the last few months. Social Democrat Matthias Ecke was beaten by a group of teenagers as he was hanging posters in Dresden, and needed hospitalization. “As you will surely understand he is not yet able to resume his activities in full capacity,” wrote one of Mr. Ecke’s spokespersons, declining an interview request.
Berlin state Sen. Franziska Giffey endured head and neck injuries when she was assaulted at a routine library visit earlier in May. Last year, the son of a Bavarian mayor found a pig’s head on the family’s doorstep. The list goes on. In Germany in 2023, a parliamentary inquiry reported nearly 3,000 attacks on members of parliament and political parties, including 1,219 attacks reported against the Greens, 478 against the far-right Alternative for Germany, 420 against the Social Democrats, and 299 against the Free Democrats. The tally this year is on track to top those figures easily.
Mr. Wagner blames a vitriolic environment that’s been worsened by hate spread online. “Nobody had an iPhone before 2006,” he says. “If I went out to a marketplace in Germany or Thuringia and spoke to people in person, the situation wouldn’t be as heated as it is on social media.”
Similarly, when Prime Minister Fico was shot, Slovakian Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj-Eštok pointed fingers at journalists, fellow politicians, and members of the public. “We are standing here slowly on the brink of civil war because hateful comments are on social media,” he said in a press conference. “Please let’s stop this immediately.”
Other politicians also say they want to calm down the rhetoric. Following the attack on Mr. Fico, several Slovakian parties called for a suspension of campaigning, despite European parliamentary elections looming in early June. And in Germany, leaders of the most-attacked parties – the right and the left – have called for calm.
“You would hope [the assassination attempt] gives rise to a little introspection around how political debates are conducted where there are threats of violence and very partisan or very deep-rooted splits on various ideological issues,” says Jacob Kirkegaard, a political economist and fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
But he feels the ultimate result is likely to be a beefing up of security measures. “There have been political assassinations or attempted assassinations in other European countries before, some of them successful, some of them not. And I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that they made a difference [in the level of rhetoric],” says Dr. Kirkegaard.
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In Slovakia, Dr. Muzikárová expects the vitriol will continue. “The signals that I’ve seen so far are not positive to me,” she says. “Instead of a wake-up call, this will be a development which will be weaponized to further the current administration’s agenda. [Mr. Fico’s party] has been so quick after the attack to blame the journalist community, the opposition.”
Milan Nič, a Slovakian political scientist affiliated with the German Council on Foreign Relations, says there have been hints of unity, “but these signs and gestures are at the time more from individuals [rather than from the parties]. We are not out of the woods.”
“We have to calm down”
Threats are nothing new to Mr. Wagner, the politician whose car was surrounded as he hung posters last month.
A few years ago, three members of far-left, anti-fascist militant groups appeared on his home’s front lawn. The next year, Mr. Wagner moved his family to another home, only to have his address doxxed again.
Mr. Wagner is a former martial arts expert and judo teacher, he says, and feels he can take care of his personal safety. But his family didn’t choose public life, and his children are getting older and more aware, just as the threat to politicians has escalated.
“There have been so many conflicts: corona[virus], the war in Ukraine, immigration,” he says. “There’s conflict here in our land that is now coming out.”
Mr. Wagner and his fellow Free Democratic party members have instituted safety rules. They only hang posters during daylight hours. If they engage with the public, they must go with three other colleagues and never alone. “We also said to all members that they must immediately call the police if someone says harsh words,” says Mr. Wagner.
Ultimately, over the long term, Mr. Wagner has hope because the younger generation – including his children – is growing up with social media. They should be better able to discern what’s true from what’s fake than older generations are. “My hope is that the new kids learn how to discuss civilly and politely, and learn to see what’s fake news from Russia or from bots, and what’s really a real person’s writing,” he says.
He also sees some signs of hope, with politicians from all parties now calling for a tamping down of the political rhetoric, which he recalls first escalating over the last decade as the far right called for “Chancellor Angela Merkel to be put in prison.”
“It takes time,” Mr. Wagner says, noting it’s a challenging time to calm the rhetoric because of upcoming EU parliamentary and local elections. “But we know we have to calm down. We must start with social media and bring the discussion to a higher level.”