The (partial) results of the European elections from 23-26 May point to a very divided European Parliament.
While the Christian Democrats of the EPP and the Social Democrats of the S&D remain the two largest groups, they each lost votes and, between them, no longer have an absolute majority. The liberal ALDE and Greens/EFA groups have gained seats. As expected, the far-right parties are gaining ground, while the far left is clearly in retreat.
The EPP still in the lead
The EPP won the elections with a provisional result of 179 seats (23.83%). While it remains the largest group, it may lose as many as 38 seats compared to the previous legislature when it had 216 elected representatives.
But the victory was difficult for the EPP. “We have lost seats”, conceded German Manfred Weber, Spitzenkandidat of the Christian Democratic family.
According to the Bavarian, there will be “no stable majority [in the European Parliament] without the EPP”, and there will also be no shift of the EPP towards the far right and the nationalists.
In Germany, the CDU/CSU certainly had good results and was credited with 28.80%. But this is a slight setback for the party, because it is expected to lose five seats compared to 2014, with 29 seats instead of 34.
In Austria, Sebastian Kurz's ÖVP party won the election, apparently spared by Ibizagate, which ended his coalition. His party even won two more seats (seven) than in 2014.
In Greece, Neo Demokratia also won the election with 33% of the vote, increasing from five to nine seats.
The results were also good for the EPP in Bulgaria, which remains in the lead in this country with seven seats (as in 2014). The same goes for Viktor Orbán's Fidesz, which won 52% of the vote, although there is no guarantee that it will remain in the EPP family.
But it is in France that the defeat was most serious. The Republicans came in fourth place, with 8.3% of the vote. They may only get seven MPs, compared to 20 currently.
While the number of Polish deputies will rise to 18, slightly down by four seats compared to 2014, in Italy, Forza Italia is expected to come in fourth place with 9.8% of the votes.
In Spain, the Popular Party came in second and is expected to win 12 seats compared to 17 in 2014.
The S&D in decline
The S&D group’s situation is the same as that of the EPP: fewer seats than before, but still the same position. According to an estimate published in the early hours of Monday 27 May, the S&D is expected to lose 35 seats compared to the previous term (150 compared to 185) but nevertheless maintain its second position in the Chamber, behind the EPP.
The most significant losses were recorded in Italy (-13 seats), Germany (-12 seats), the United Kingdom (-7 seats) and France (-7 seats). In Italy and France, this setback is explained by a shift towards the extreme right, Matteo Salvini's Lega and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national. In Germany, Angela Merkel’s entire government was punished in favour of a green wave.
Overall, the S&D will lose seats in eleven Member States. It remains stable in five countries and is gaining ground in eight.
In addition to good progress in the Netherlands (+3 deputies), the country of the leading PES party candidate, Frans Timmermans, the S&D recorded its only real progress in Spain. After its victory in the legislative elections, Pedro Sánchez's PSOE won 20 seats in the European Parliament, which gave it a third of the Spanish seats.
“It's a source of pride, an opportunity and a responsibility”, Mr Sánchez reacted on Twitter. “We will work for a progressive, social democratic and left-wing alternative to austerity policies. A social Europe that protects and redistributes”, he continued.
Mr Timmermans immediately called on other progressive groups to design a “programme that responds to citizens' dreams, aspirations and fears, for a truly progressive policy”, excluding de facto the extreme right (see EUROPE 12263/2).
The ALDE sees strong growth
The Liberals, along with the Greens, are the big winners of these elections, with 38 additional deputies, going from 69 seats to 107 seats.
At the beginning of election night, the ALDE asked that the deputies on the lists from both the French ‘Renaissance’/La République en marche and the Romanian USR party be included in the ALDE group. It was a winning choice, since they represent 28 elected officials combined: 21 for La République en marche, and seven for the Alliance 2020 USR Plus coalition. This announcement seems to confirm the expected alliance between the ALDE parties and President Macron's French party, La République en marche (see EUROPE 12253/16).
“At the end of this election night, it will be clear that we are the pro-European group that has really won, and we will use this strength, and our seats, to push for a more ambitious Europe”, promised the group's president, Guy Verhofstadt, after the first results were published.
The Belgian also sees his party as a European kingmaker. “Tonight is a historic moment because there will be a new balance of power in the European Parliament”, he explained. From now on, he says, “no solid pro-European majority is possible without the participation of our new centrist group, composed of the ALDE family, Renaissance and other reformist parties”.
France is expected to represent the largest contingent in the group with 21 members, 14 more than in the current Parliament, ahead of the British Lib Dems (16 seats compared to one at present) and far ahead of Romania (seven – compared to six at present), Spain (eight, as at present) and Germany (seven compared to four up until now).
The Liberal Group will also see the arrival of new delegations with two Hungarians, two Poles and two Slovaks.
However, despite these good results, several delegations are losing members, notably Belgium (-2), Portugal (-1) and the Netherlands (-1) and the group is losing its Italian delegation (-1).
Progress for environmentalists
For the environmental families, it was also a time for celebration. While the Greens/EFA group was composed of 52 MEPs in the previous Parliament, the European Parliament's projections around 2:30 am Monday morning indicate an increase of 18 MEPs for a total of 70 members. The European Green Party projections were anticipating about 50 MEPs a little over 2 months ago (see EUROPE 12208/17).
It is in Germany that the Green Party's result was most notable, with 20.70% of the votes cast. It is expected to send 22 MEPs to Parliament. In France too, the results were surprising, since the Europe Ecology-The Greens obtained 13.13% of the votes, i.e. 12 elected representatives, while polls credited the party with less than 10% of intended votes.
“We want to thank the voters, and especially of course the voters who have clearly called for change, [...]change for a new Europe: a Europe that fights climate change, a Europe that turns towards a green transition in a socially just way, a Europe that fights for the rule of law”, said Dutchman Bas Eickhout, one of the two co-Spitzenkandidats of the European Green Party. “Having a positive vision for the European Union works”, the other co-Spitzenkandidat, the German Ska Keller, was pleased to say.
Extreme groups have less momentum than expected
The Europe of Nations and Freedoms (ENF) group, which brings together far-right parties and took more than a year to form after the 2014 European elections, will increase from 37 to 58 seats. This is certainly an expansion, but not the heralded landslide.
The last European Parliament projections in April (see EUROPE 12239/23) forecast a total of 63 seats for the ENF group. In the end, it only won about 20 seats, becoming the sixth largest group in Parliament.
In Italy, the Lega, led by the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, won 28.70% of the votes. This party saw the biggest increase, from five to 24 seats.
The French Rassemblement National (RN), which came in first in France with 23.54%, won 22 seats. However, this score was lower than 2014, when the party, then known as the Front National (FN), won 24.86%, or 23 seats.
According to RN lead candidate Jordan Bardella, the French people have disowned the European Union as it exists, which must “now radically reorient its economic, social and migration policy”. He asserted that the momentum in Europe among the allies of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group has paved the way for the constitution of “a powerful group within Parliament” to promote “common sense in power”.
Marine Le Pen, in an ineligible position on the list at 78th place out of 79, welcomed a “victory for the people” in favour of the “movement for a future change in power”.
In Belgium, Vlaams Belang made real progress, obtaining 11.53%, or three seats, this year compared to 4.26% in 2014.
In Austria, the Ibizagate scandal (see EUROPE 12258/18), which destabilised the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and caused the fall of the government coalition with the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), does not seem to have discouraged its voters. The party obtained 17.20% of the votes (three seats), a slight decrease from its result in 2014 (19.72%; four seats).
The Czech SPD won two seats (7.50%).
In the Netherlands, on the other hand, the forecasted victory of the extreme right and the populists did not take place. Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) lost three seats and kept only one.
It should be noted that the Spanish party Vox entered Parliament, winning three seats (6.21%), with the Estonian EKRE party obtaining one seat (12.70%). While the leaders of the ENF have appeared widely with the leaders of these two parties, they are not yet counted within the ENF group.
At the beginning of April, representatives of the Lega, the German AfD, which belongs to the EFDD group, the True Finns and the Danish People's Party, belonging to the ECR group, announced their plans to form a large political group (see EUROPE 12231/7).
The EFDD gains ground
With 56 seats compared to 42 in 2014, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group (EFDD) remains behind the ENF and Conservative (ECR) groups, but it can boast about very good results in the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage's Brexit Party (formerly Ukip) is expected to win 29 seats, or 31.71% of the vote.
As for the Italian Five Star Movement, which received 20.1% of the vote and third place in Italy, the movement led by Luigi de Maio will not succeed in forming a larger European group, according to the Italian media.
In Germany, AfD is credited with 11 seats compared to one in 2014.
Conservatives on the decline
The Group of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is one of the big losers of this election night.
In the previous European Parliament, the ECR was composed of 77 members, the third largest group in the European body. It is expected to lose 19 elected officials, leaving 58 parliamentarians. If these figures are confirmed, the group would therefore only be the fifth-largest political force, on par with the anti-European ENF.
While the Polish Conservatives (PiS) recorded an increase (22 deputies compared to 14 in the previous legislature), the Belgians of the N-VA lost one deputy, and the German Conservatives no longer have a representative in the next Parliament.
Above all, it is the British delegation that suffered the greatest loss. It had 19 representatives in the previous legislature, and now there are only four. “In terms of number of seats, our group will suffer from the planned exit of the United Kingdom from the EU”, said Hans-Olaf Henkel on behalf of the ECR group.
Mr Henkel, who once ran for the nomination as Spitzenkandidat against the Czech Jan Zahradil (see EUROPE 12136/11, 12103/11), rejected any alliance with the far right in order to expand the ranks of the ECR group. Asked about the possibility that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party might join the ranks of the Eurosceptics, Henkel criticised some of the measures taken in Hungary by the Hungarian government without equating the Fidesz party with the far right. It will be up to the Hungarian party and the leaders of the ECR group to decide whether to form an alliance, he said.
The GUE/NGL in sharp decline
The election was a big disappointment for the Confederal Group of the European United Left and the Nordic Green Left. The group has fallen from 52 to 38 MEPs, with the highest losses in Spain (five elected representatives compared to 10 previously), Germany (five compared to eight previously) and Italy (none compared to three previously).
“We didn't get the results we hoped for. We will try to communicate better in the future about our priorities, social and climate issues, and we will continue our work”, said the lead candidate on the far left, Belgian Nico Cué.
However, this metalworker can celebrate seeing his party, the Belgian Labour Party, send its very first MEP to Strasbourg.
The GUE/NGL group also won an additional seat in France, reaching six MEPs. Greece will also send six deputies. No other Member State will send additional representatives from the United Left. (Original version in French by the editors)