Europe is waking up to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood

You don’t always have to break the rules to change society. Sometimes, you just need to learn how to use them. It is also on this paradox that the phenomenon of Islamist entryism is based, an issue on which the European Parliament has finally decided to take action. On 8 October, with 381 votes in favour, 167 against and 15 abstentions, Strasbourg adopted a resolution against the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, calling on the EU Council to consider adding entities linked to the movement to the European list of terrorist organisations.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928, and its motto leaves little room for interpretation: ‘The Qur’an is our Constitution, jihad is our way’. Sixty years later, Hamas adopted it almost word for word, defining itself in its original 1988 Charter as the Palestinian wing of the movement. The Brotherhood’s political project is to promote, including in Europe, a society in which the principles of political Islam gradually gain influence over institutions, laws and public life.

Entrism, after all, stems from a simple insight: to change society in order to transform institutions, one step at a time. Cultural associations, schools, community centres, religious bodies, institutional relations: all legitimate activities, and it is precisely this legitimacy that makes them potentially effective tools.

In Germany, the security services estimate that there are around 1,450 people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood network. This figure may seem modest, but political influence is not measured by membership numbers: the German authorities describe a network of mosques, Islamic centres and associations capable of building relationships and establishing a presence within society.

France provides an even more detailed example. A report by the Ministry of the Interior dated May 2025 identifies Musulmans de France as the main national offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The federation has 139 places of worship affiliated to it, whilst a further 68 are considered to be within its sphere of influence.

The authors themselves point out that no recent document demonstrates any intention on the part of Musulmans de France to establish an Islamic state or impose Sharia law in France. This is a clarification that should be taken seriously, but the strategy described in the report does not involve imposition from above: the rules of a society can also be gradually eroded, bit by bit. An exception today. A concession tomorrow. An exception that becomes a precedent, a precedent that becomes the norm. And what seemed unthinkable yesterday ends up appearing normal.

The same logic, regardless of the acronyms, has also emerged in Italy in recent days. In Padua, an Islamic arbitration chamber, established in March, is using a mechanism provided for by law – private arbitration – to overturn a hierarchy: its panel is called the Sharia Court and applies Italian law only where Sharia does not provide for it – only to rectify this distortion at a later date. Arbitration rests on one premise: that the parties choose it freely. But in a closed community, for the most vulnerable – and for women above all – turning to an Italian court may not be a choice.

So much for the organisations. Then there are the ideas. An Ifop survey from November 2025, conducted amongst a sample of Muslims living in France, found that 46 per cent of respondents were in favour of applying Islamic law in non-Muslim countries: 15 per cent in full, and 31 per cent partially, adapting it to national legislation. Among respondents aged under twenty-five, 32 per cent stated that they sympathised with the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood.

One in three. Declaring ideological affinity is different from joining, enlisting in or supporting the organisation, and that distinction matters. The fact remains, however: organisations change, split and reorganise, whilst ideas, once they find an audience, can survive for much longer.

For ideas to spread, infrastructure and funding are also required. In the ‘Qatar Papers’ investigation, published in 2019, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot report on internal documents from Qatar Charity. A table dating from 2014 shows approximately 71.8 million euros earmarked for Islamic projects in Europe. Italy ranks first, with approximately 22.9 million distributed across 45 projects.

That funding does not prove any wrongdoing, and a foreign-funded Islamic centre does not, for that reason alone, belong to the Brotherhood. It remains a question of method: when an organisation receives significant resources and maintains relations with institutions, knowing the source of those funds and the interests of the funders should be the norm. Instead, in this regard, even asking the question sometimes seems to require justification.

Others, however, did not wait for Strasbourg. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, and Jordan banned its activities in 2025. In Europe, Austria banned the movement’s symbols in 2021, and in May 2026 the French Senate approved a bill against Islamist infiltration, which was subsequently referred to the National Assembly. In other countries, the issue has featured in security service reports for years. Europe, therefore, is not discovering this phenomenon for the first time today: it has finally decided to treat it as a common political issue.

And here we return to the vote on 8 October. The PD, the Five Star Movement and the Greens and Left Alliance have chosen to oppose the resolution. Which parts of the text were deemed unacceptable? What alternative strategy do they consider necessary? What ideological resistance, if any, are these parties unable to overcome?

For too long, the European debate on political Islamism has been mired in confusion between a religion and a political project that draws on that religion. Religious freedom protects the right to believe, practise and associate, but it should not prevent us from questioning the political aims of organisations, their funding and the relationships they forge with public authorities.

Demanding transparency from a mosque, therefore, is no more discriminatory than demanding it from a foundation, a trade union or a political party. The standard must be the same for everyone, and it is precisely this universality that makes it compatible with a secular state.

The Strasbourg resolution does not ban the Muslim Brotherhood and does not, on its own, resolve the problem of entryism. It does, however, mark a political turning point: the recognition that a democracy can also be influenced through the very freedoms it guarantees. Better late than never.