The new European Parliament resulting from four days of voting across the continent will have a majority similar to that of the last legislature, although with a slightly greater weight of the traditional right and ultras and less of the social democrats and greens. Below we review the nine key charts from the election (in the absence of data from Ireland, which could take several days).
A parliament of more than 170 parties
The new chamber represents more than 170 national parties. Popular, social democrats and liberals have obtained 400 seats, 55% of Parliament. These three groups have carried out most of the measures of the last legislature and are likely to support Ursula Von der Leyen (PPE) in her re-election.
The two far-right groups, Identity and Democracy (led by Marine Le Pen’s French National Rally) and the Conservatives and Reformists (with parties such as Vox or Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy) make up 18% of the chamber. Other ultra-conservative parties, such as the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) or the Hungarian Fidesz of Viktor Orbán, remain in the non-registered group for the moment.
The group labeled “others” includes groups that enter Parliament and have not yet joined any group. This is the case of Se Acabó La Fiesta, Alvise Pérez’s party. When the legislature begins, these formations may adhere to one family or another and this distribution will change.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
Few changes (and to the right)
The Parliament of this 10th legislature has a similar composition to the outgoing one, but the historical perspective gives some clue to how the vote has moved.
The Social Democrats represent less than 20% of the total seats in Parliament for the first time since 1979. The Popular Party is growing, although they are far from the 37% they controlled in 2004. The Greens, who had a record result in the last elections, return to their average of the last 20 years, with 7% of parliamentarians.
The big block loses ground
The sum of liberals, socialists and popular people continues to be the majority in Parliament, but their power continues to decline: between 1999 and 2009 they brought together more than 70% of parliamentarians; today they are 55%. The drop is due to the loss of seats of socialists and liberals.
The extreme right holds and rises
The erosion of the large European groups would not be understood without the growth of the extreme right. If the Identity and Democracy, Conservatives and Reform, AfD and Fidesz groups (which participate as non-registered) are included under this label, they represent 21.5% of the European Parliament. Five years ago they amounted to 20% (also including Nigel Farage’s British UKIP). This Sunday’s results show the consolidation of the leap they made in the last elections.
When the results are broken down by country, it is seen where the ultraconservative forces have obtained the best results, as seen in the following map.
In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) has the most votes: it has won 6 of the 20 seats in the Central European country. In Belgium it is also the leading force, although with only 14% of the votes in a very distributed election (13 parties have seats, in Spain there are 11). This result has led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has managed to double Macron’s coalition in votes and has obtained nine percentage points more (31%) than in the last European elections, which has forced the French president to call legislative elections.
In Germany, AfD has obtained 16% of the votes and 15 seats: they are the second party in the country, ahead of the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Liberals lose support in more than half of the continent
The Renew group loses presence in more than 15 countries five years after the elections that gave them the best result in their history.
Although training has grown in the east of the continent, in countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, it has retreated in the north: Renew has deflated in Denmark, Finland and Estonia.
The main blow has come from France: in five years they have gone from 21 seats to only 13 of the 81 seats that correspond to the country in the European Parliament.
The greens take a hit in key places
The fortunes of the Greens have also changed, as they have not been able to match their exceptionally good results in 2019. The environmental groups obtain 52 seats for the new legislature, 7% of the chamber: five years ago they had 10%.
This decline is the result of the significant decline of their formations in Germany and France, the main breadbaskets of environmentalists in the last elections, where they fell more than 10 points.
The results in Sweden, Denmark or Spain have contained a greater decline in the family of ecological formations. In Spain, the group collected votes from Sumar and Ahora Repúblicas, and has grown three points.
The winners in each country: the popular ones, the leading force in half of Europe
In 13 of the 27 European countries, the popular group formations have had the most votes. In Germany, the CDU coalition has taken 29 seats, one in three, getting twice as many as the socialists.
Liberal parties have been the favorites in the Netherlands, Czechia and Slovakia. In Denmark, the three formations that were in this European group have together obtained one more seat from the most voted party, the socialist party.
The extreme right of Identity and Democracy has managed to win in France with 30% of the votes (twice that of the coalition of President Emmanuel Macron’s party), in Austria and in Belgium. In Italy, the most voted has been Brothers of Italy by Giorgia Meloni, from the Conservatives and Reformists.
And now that? The possible sums
One of Parliament’s first missions will be to approve the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission. The German, as the candidate of the most voted political family, the European People’s Party, will have to be proposed by the European Council, where the prime ministers of the EU members meet.
Popular, social democrats and liberals have been the groups that have voted together for the majority of measures in the last legislature, a scenario that is likely to be repeated. Von der Leyen commented as soon as the results were known that she has the support of social democrats and liberals to “build a bastion against the extremes, from the left and the right.”
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#happened #Europe #keys #elections #graphs