Brussels, 26/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - A slim lead, but a lead nonetheless. The first results through show that the European People's Party has claimed first place in the European elections of Sunday 25 May with 212 seats, putting them 26 ahead of the Social Democrats of the S&D, who won 186 (the results of Matteo Renzi's party in Italy, largely believed to be victorious, are not yet in). In third place, Guy Verhofstadt's ALDE group had 70 seats on Sunday evening, fewer than in 2009 when the group won 83 seats, but its numbers are expected to increase as a result of negotiations with national groupings. The Liberals hope to get their numbers up to 90, Guy Verhofstadt said on Sunday evening.
The fourth grouping, the Greens/EFA group, was credited with 55 seats, slightly down on 2009 but in a better position than certain surveys gave them to expect, followed by the Conservatives of ECR with 44 seats (down from 56 in 2009), the GUE/NGL radical left group, credited with 43 seats, Nigel Farage's EFD with 36 seats (up from 33 in 2009). The preliminary results show that independent MEPs won 38 seats. As for the "Others" group, a motley collection of parties whose affiliations are not yet clear and which is made up of, for example, the Five-Star Movement of Italy's Beppe Grillo, Germany's AFD and the Greek party Golden Dawn, it finished the evening with a score of 67 seats, an increase on 2009.
The EPP's candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, believes that this score leaves no room for doubt that he is in the strongest position to try to form a majority at the European Parliament, as the required threshold is the absolute majority of 376 seats + one. "Without knowing the final results, we know that the EPP is in the lead and I have every right to become the next President of the European Commission", he explained, shortly after the first results came out.
Second-placed Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament and Socialist candidate to take over from José Manuel Barroso, however, was not yet ready to throw in the towel. Firmly believing that the projections of the Parliament (his current institution) "are wrong", as he said on Sunday evening, the German candidate believes that the "democratic forces must discuss the matter between themselves" and that it will be impossible to put together any majority "without the Socialist group on board". Martin Schulz added that the EPP has by no means notched up a resounding victory. "A party which has lost 60 seats cannot lay claim to leadership of the EU. The EPP must negotiate (with us) to secure a coherent majority at the EP", Mr Schulz said. And there will be three conditions on such an agreement: "tackling youth unemployment, fighting fraud and tax evasion and more rules and controls in the banking sector".
The Liberals' candidate for the top job at the European Commission, Guy Verhofstadt, was also of the opinion that he was an essential component of any majority at the EP. Negotiations will be based on the "content", but "as far as we are concerned, it is clear that we will only be part of a stable majority if the programme is different from what we have seen over the last five years", the group's Belgian leader said.
Speaking shortly afterwards from the hemicycle of the European Parliament, Jean-Claude Juncker reiterated that he had the legitimacy required to start negotiations with the other groups of the EP. Although he is open to talks with the S&D, Liberals and Greens, he will categorically turn out any support which may be forthcoming from the Eurosceptics or extremist groups. He also rules out going down that path himself, he stressed. However, as the EPP is credited, albeit provisionally, with a 26-seat lead, Jean-Claude Juncker said on Sunday evening that he felt he was still in the best position to become the next President of the Commission, calling on the heads of state and government to bear this logic in mind on Tuesday, at their informal dinner.
Although various opinion polls left them out in limbo in these elections, the European Greens ultimately put in a respectable showing. "This evening's results are really very good", said Ska Keller, the Greens' candidate for the Presidency of the Commission. Irish, Hungarian and Croatian Green MEPs will be making their debut. "We are extremely proud, the Green message is making itself heard in countries where they were not previously represented", she stressed. "The Greens have requirements. We will only support a candidate with a green agenda", the young German politician explained. "We're interested to hear the green proposals of Schulz and Junker", she added, regretting that she had not so far heard from them. She also called for an end to negotiations on the transatlantic Treaty. "This is what we ask of the new Commission", the Green MEP explained.
Another winner of the evening: the radical left-wing party led by the young leader of the Greek party Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, whose party won the elections in Greece and who described it as "extremely important to put an end to the disastrous policy of austerity". "From what we have heard, there are considerably fewer seats for the main parties which formed the consensus around austerity policies", said Alexis Tsipras. "Our political programme cannot any longer be ignored", he added.
The Eurosceptics of UKIP and the Europe, Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group of Nigel Farage also had a good evening, as UKIP came in first place in the United Kingdom. Delighted with this anti-EU thrust, the British leader put this success down more generally to a rejection of a Eurozone which is not working and of "enlargement to former eastern bloc countries, which has widened the gap between the rich countries and the poor". "The people have understood that these were serious mistakes", said Nigel Farage, who acknowledged that the main fallout of these results would be at national level. "The real impact will be in the national referendums on Europe". Faithful to himself, Nigel Farage also pledged to block potential candidates to take over from Mr Barroso. The Conservatives of the ECR group, of which the Tories are members, who are opposed to Mr Juncker, Mr Schulz and Mr Verhofstadt, are doing likewise.
Struan Stevenson, the President of the ECR group, said that his group would have 44 members, compared to 57 previously. "We have reached the threshold of seven member states and we are confident that we will manage to get more EU countries behind us", said Mr Stevenson. Millions of people have called for reforms and their voices must be heard, he added. He went on to say that these elections were not legitimate.
Late into Sunday night, the great unknown of the evening lay in the possibility that a new extreme right-wing group could emerge at the EP around the leader of the French Front National, Marine Le Pen (see other article), who was victorious in her own country. One thing is for certain: Europhobes will hold more than 140 seats in the future EP, according to the latest estimates available, and at least 40 of these represent the Le Pen mindset. A small consolation to everyone from the evening is that the turnout rate was up. It was, however, a highly relative increase, standing at 43.09% compared to 43% in 2009. (SP/LC/EL/CG/MP/MB/JK)