The European election in May showed significant gains for green, liberal and right-wing parties across the European Union. At the same time, the number of seats and votes for the major parties on the centre-left and the centre-right declined. Europe Elects has now published the first projection after the 2019 European election, which shows how the EU Parliament would look like if there were an election held today. The projection reveals that the centre-left and, more so, the centre-right would continue to lose seats in the European Parliament.
If there were a European election held today, the EPP would decline to their lowest European election result ever, facing losses particularly in Spain (Partido Popular) and Germany (CDU/CSU). The EPP would only get 167 out of 751 seats in the EU Parliament. That equates with a loss of 15 seats compared to May’s election result.
The centre-left S&D Group would lose a total of nine seats, down to 145.
The liberal RE block centred around French President Macron would rise from its current total of 108 to 119 seats. That’s 11 seats more than what the liberals achieved in the May election and is the highest result ever projected for RE and its predecessor ALDE. The right-wing parties organized in the ID Group around Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini would also gain votes and reach 80 seats, seven seats up from the May election.
In the May election, Greens/EFA was still ahead of the right-wing ID Group. This would change if there were an EU election held today. Greens/EFA group would drop by one seat to 74 seats.
The national-conservative ECR Group lead by the Polish governing party PiS would gain two seats and reach 64 in Europe Elects’ projection. The left-wing GUE/NGL which contains Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras bounces back slightly from their miserable EU election result and rise five seats to 46 seats.
In the popular vote, the centre-right declines from 21% to 19.1%. 18.9% (+0.4) of Europeans would now support a centre-left S&D party. The liberal RE would again become the third most popular choice with 13.3%, up from 13.0%.
The right-wing ID with 11.4% (+0.6) overtakes the Greens/EFA group (-1.4). The national-conservative ECR makes the most substantial gains since May. While the ECR got only 8.2% in the popular vote in the EU election, this share rises to 9.8% in June. The left-wing GUE/NGL parties rise from 6.5% to 6.9%.
The next European election is scheduled for May 2024.
The article has been reviewed by our editor Euan Healey.
