Europe Elects’ European Parliament projection, commissioned by Euractiv, offers an indication of how voters in the European Union would vote should there be an EU Parliament election today and how this outlook changes on a monthly basis.
The European elections are a little over a week away and a lot of (possible) changes on group affiliations influence how the new parliament is projected.
Still, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) remains at the top of the list, even though they lose seats the second time in a row. They are now at 180 seats, a minus of three. They are followed still by a large gap by the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), which are down by two seats to now to 138, mostly because of Slovakian HLAS is now not being grouped with them in our projection any more. Renew Europe (RE), the centrist-liberal group, is projected to have 86 seats, the same as in the month before. This number could still change, as discussion to expel the Dutch VVD is underway after the party formed a government with PVV (ID). The three centrist groups that form an informal coalition in the European Parliament, EPP, RE and S&D, now have a total of 404 out of 720 seats, a comfortable absolute majority with five less seats than last month.
On the right of the political spectrum, both groups have discussions regarding memberships of national parties. Right-wing Identity and Democracy (ID) removed their German member AfD, which adds to their loss down to 68 seats, a minus of 16 seats. With that, they seem to not have any chances to challenge the third place.
The national-conservative European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) are also projected with 11 seats less than the month before and have now 75 seats. This comes partly from Romanian AUR not being grouped with them any more. There are chances for them to gain seats back and close in on RE again should they include Hungarian Fidesz (NI), but that could on the other hand have consequences with the more centrist members like Czech ODS.
On the left, the Greens/European Free Alliance (G/EFA) seem to be able to mobilise well with the elections close, they are now at 56 seats, eight more than last month. The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL (LEFT) are projected with 39 seats, five seats fewer than in April. For cohesiveness of this group it will be worthwhile to track whether there will be a new group after the next elections. German BSW (NI) claims to be well prepared to start its own group, which might siphon disgruntled members away from LEFT.
The Non-Inscrits (NI) are now at 76 seats, 28 more than in the month before, as all excluded parties of other groups default to this. Two seats are left from parties whose affiliation is not (yet) known, up one from last month.
Besides the changes of affiliations, also changes in polling lie behind the changes.
The EPP group has gained another three seats from the newly formed Hungarian party Tisztelet és Szabadság which is expected to join them in the European Parliament. On the other hand their Italian member Forza Italia is projected with two seats less this month.
For the centre-left S&D, the only major change comes from France, where Parti Socialiste is down by two seats compared to the month before. Also the centrist RE has only one significant change: Italian Azione is now projected to enter the parliament and have four seats.
For the groups on the right, the only change besides the one mentioned already above is that French Rassemblement National is two seats up (plus additional two seats from L’Avenir Français, that did not make it on their list). The potential Hungarian ECR member Fidesz (NI) is down by two seats.
German Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Für Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (NI) that wants to form their own group after the elections is up by two seats compared to April.
In the LEFT group Irish member Sinn Féin is projected with two seats less this month.
All other national parties are expected to gain or lose no more than one seat.
The projection of the popular vote for April brings several major changes for the groups, partially as we have now all lists available for the election and we adapted our data to this. The European People’s Party is down slightly this month to 21.3% (−1.6) whit a much narrower gap to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats that are now up to 20% (+1.7). Renew Europe is up by 1.2 percentage points to 11.1% Together, the three groups of the informal coalition increase their share and hold an absolute majority with 52.4%.
On the right of the political spectrum, the European Conservatives and Reformists increase their share to 12.2% (+0.4) while Identity and Democracy drops to 9.3% (−1.9).
On the left, the Greens/European Free Alliance gain 0.1 percentage points to 7.9%, as does The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NG who are now at 6.5%, up by 0.2 percentage points.
Non-inscrits increased this month to 9% (+2.4) and those who are not (yet) affiliated with a political group are down to 3% (−2.2).
Details of this methodology are explained on our European Parliament projection site, where you can also find a detailed overview and explanation of the methodology behind the monthly projection, including information on why there are sometimes different developments in the popular vote share and the seat projection.
Each group that we project each month has a European political party behind it, often one but sometimes more. With only a little more than one month to go, most of them have announced their candidate to lead the Commission. The system is controversial because, in the previous instance, none of the selected candidates were appointed to the role. However, Ursula von der Leyen, who was not a candidate, got the position. Still, most parties have nominated a candidate. You can see them here:
The composition of the European Council did not changed this month: Croatia has a new government where Andrej Plenković (HDZ -EPP) will stay prime minister. In the Netherlands, a coalition deal has finally been struck but the new government with an independent PM has not sworn in yet.
All election results and details of upcoming elections can be found in our Election Calendar.
