On Monday 25 March in Strasbourg, the Bureau of the European Parliament decided to interrupt the publication of the projections on the seats of the next Parliament after the May elections by the institution’s services as of 23 April (see EUROPE 12219/4, 12205/17).
This is a compromise reached between the position of the EPP group, which is rather in favour of regularly publishing a snapshot of the seats of the next Parliament, and that of other groups, which considered that it was not for Parliament to make this type of projection public.
The surveys will therefore be completed one month before the start of Parliament elections.
Two more projections instead of seven. As a consequence of this decision, which prematurely interrupted Parliament's surveys, Parliament will now publish only two compilations of surveys, compared to the seven additional ones initially planned (three of which will be published in May).
The dates of the last two projections are still being discussed, but they should be about two weeks apart.
For the first time in its history, the institution had released, in mid-February and early March, initial projections of voting intentions for the upcoming May elections. A third projection was scheduled for Monday 18 March, but was not published. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)