The European Parliamentary elections brought big wins to the extreme right in Europe. Its lead candidate told Reuters that "we say Europe is the continent of white people and it should remain that way".The European Parliament is not going to stop functioning because of the new gains of the extreme right and Eurosecptics. But its new balance of power will generate a lot of heated debate about the meaning and direction of the EU, its monetary, education and immigration policies and Europe's divided foreign policy. More fundamentally, these results will have implications for the future of the EU and Europe's standing in the world in the 21st century. Alarmed by the results, Jose Barroso, the President of the European Commission, said that "this is the moment to come together and to define the Union's way forward".At the national level, the extreme right parties will continue to rise. Their new-found confidence is likely to lead to a climate of fear and intimidation for millions of minority communities in Europe. Their racist and discriminatory discourse will be seen as normal and routine. They will continue to exploit the economic grievances of low-income European citizens. European political leaders need to explain to them that the remedy to economic woes is not racism, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. It is better economic policies and a more dynamic view of globalization.At the EU level, the enlargement process, already troubled by internal debates and lack of strategic leadership, will come under further pressure. Those who are already against Turkey's full membership will conveniently use this as another excuse. What is clear is that the rise of the extreme right is not simply a victory for the anti-Turkey camp; it is the defeat of a liberal and pluralist Europe. The anti-EU, anti-globalization and anti-immigration parties present a great irony in EU politics: If the EU is the root cause of national problems, as these parties claim, and should be weakened rather than empowered, why did they enter the EU-wide elections in the first place? This might be a tactic to conquer the fortress from inside. Yet a major presence of extreme right-wing parties in the European Parliament will change the dynamics of politics both at the national and EU levels.The2014 EP elections make one thing clear about the state of European politics today: the so-called extreme right in Europe is not an innocuous political movement with some justified nationalist grievances. The extreme right in Europe is a combination of the well-known, old-fashioned xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-globalization political ideology. Some of its more extreme strands hold racist, fascist, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic thoughts. With this Europe-wide victory, they are no longer a fringe group on the outskirts of European politics. Those who care about a stable, prosperous and multiculturalist Europe need to give serious consideration to the causes of the rise of extreme right in Europe. The xenophobic, anti-globalization Eurosceptics cannot undermine the EU. But they can certainly cloud the idea of Europe.