BUDAPEST — Brussels may be trying to charm younger voters with a plan to hand out free InterRail passes but in parts of the Union, that offensive may be too little, too late.

Across Central Europe, young voters are moving further right on the political spectrum than their elders, with many expressing disenchantment with the European Union.

In Hungary, the far-right and Euroskeptic Jobbik party is a distant second to the ruling Fidesz when it comes to the overall population. However, Jobbik is the most popular party among university students, according to a 2015 poll.

Poland’s ultraconservative Law and Justice (no friend of Brussels, either) was easily the most popular choice for first-time voters in last year’s elections, garnering roughly a third of those votes.

The appeal of the Right isn’t new, but ascendant populist parties in these countries have successfully pitched themselves to younger voters distrustful of the establishment.

And earlier this year in Slovakia, almost a quarter of first-time voters chose the People's Party-Our Slovakia, an anti-Western, extreme-right group whose leader, Marian Kotleba, has openly expressed admiration for the country’s wartime pro-Nazi regime. Among the Slovak population as a whole, Kotleba only got 8 percent of the vote.

“Under Jobbik, politics would work for the people,” said András Dániel, a Hungarian college graduate. “We see a future with this party.”

The promise of new politics

Dániel had come with his friends to listen to László Toroczkai speak in a working class neighborhood of Budapest. The message wasn’t subtle, as the vice president of the Jobbik party held forth for more than two hours.

“White children” are in physical danger in kindergarten from migrants who come from “jungles,” he suggested, adding that the migration crisis itself is a plot hatched by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros and a small financial elite to break the back of European nations.

Sitting near the front, a group of teenagers nodded in agreement. One of them sported a Jobbik Youth T-shirt.

“The other parties don’t deal with young people,” said Vivi, an 18-year old, who has been coming to Jobbik events for about six months.

The appeal of the Right isn’t new, but ascendant populist parties in these countries have successfully pitched themselves to younger voters distrustful of the establishment.

“There was always a strong right current in Poland after 1989,” said Tom Junes, a historian and visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Sofia. “For more than a decade, Poland has seen a more or less two-party system,” and following years of Civic Platform rule “young people in Poland are voting against the establishment.”

Give me revolution

Compared to voters elsewhere, Central European youth are highly skeptical of traditional organized politics. Only 5 percent of young voters in Hungary, 6 percent in Poland and 9 percent in Slovakia believe that joining a political party would make a difference compared to an average of 12 percent across the EU, according to a Eurobarometer poll.

For younger voters estranged from the political process, far-right parties that skilfully portray themselves as change-makers and disrupters may seem attractive.

“For a long time, Hungary’s two largest parties were Fidesz and the Socialist Party, and their politicians were seemingly locked in a tower” debating each other, said Tivadar Radics, a 24-year old regional leader of the Jobbik Youth Movement in southern Hungary.

By contrast, its supporters say, Jobbik emphasizes issues relevant to daily lives of young Hungarians — such as education reform and reversing Hungarian emigration.

“We run a campaign called ‘we are students, not slaves,’” said Péter Váradi, a regional youth leader for Jobbik in central Hungary, citing such initiatives as campaigning against high university tuition fees and student loans. “It’s important for us that young people remain in the country and start families here.”

Further north in Poland, it’s the same refrain about the irrelevance of mainstream parties to people’s real concerns.

“We were promised that the standard of living would improve with EU membership … But we are now even more behind Austria than before” — András Dániel, a Hungarian college graduate

After the fall of Communism and the failed economic reforms of the previous government, “young people aren’t able to buy or rent a flat because of high real estate prices,” said Krzysztof Szczerba, 26, head of Law and Justice’s youth chapter in Wrocław and the youngest elected member of that city’s council. His party’s solution, he says, is to offer subsidies to young families and help secure affordable housing.

Law and Justice “connects the demands of social security with national values,” said Przemysław Skruch, chairman of the Law and Justice youth chapter in Tarnów, who joined the party two years ago at the age of 17, and now coordinates a group of mostly students who promote the party in his town in southeastern Poland.

“Poles are slowly beginning to recognize the fact that the EU is not everything," he said. "They are starting to grow attached to their homeland.”

Out of love with EU

Paradoxically, when it comes to Europe, the youth in these Visegrad countries seem to have broader horizons than their Western peers and disproportionately seek their fortunes in other EU countries.

A survey by Eurobarometer found that 32 percent of the youth in Slovakia, 24 percent in Hungary and 16 percent in Poland feel compelled to leave their countries to study, work or undergo training elsewhere — compared to only 1 percent in Germany, 8 percent in the U.K. and 12 percent in France.

According to a historian, appeals to nationalism resonate with younger voters, as they look for a sense of community and purpose.

But from the perspective of András Dániel, the young Hungarian at the Jobbik event, the union has been a bitter disappointment, draining his country of its resources and best talents.

“We were promised that the standard of living would improve with EU membership … But we are now even more behind Austria than before,” he said. “London is now the second-largest Hungarian city, and no other parties have been able to reverse this.”

Appeals to nationalism resonate with younger voters, as they look for a sense of community and purpose, said Junes, the historian. Young people are attracted to "slogans that have some historical weight without necessarily knowing what the historical events and their complexity represent,” he said. “It allows people to imagine themselves in a community, and it’s very attractive and an easy way to come together.”

Getting lots of 'likes'

While capitalizing on widespread dislike of the political establishment, many far-right parties are also making a concerted effort to communicate their ideas to a younger audience through a strong grassroots organization and internet presence.

Skruch said that he and his fellow activists spent much time distributing Law and Justice leaflets and talking to potential voters ahead of the 2015 election. But the internet also played “a major role” in helping the party convey its message, he said.

The People’s Party-Our Slovakia has built a significant social media presence as has Jobbik, becoming Hungary’s “strongest party online,” getting the most ‘likes’ on social media and having the widest reach, according to Csaba Tóth, director of strategy at the Budapest-based Republikon Institute. “They have developed networks independent of the mainstream media, so the capture of the mainstream media by Fidesz does not hurt them as much as it hurts the Left.”

And old-fashioned political meetings help cement a sense of belonging.

In Budapest, Márk, a university student, listened intently to László Toroczkai, Jobbik’s 38-year-old vice president. The student liked what he heard.

“The leadership and membership of many [other] parties has gotten so old,” he said. “They don’t see the problems.”