With polls now closed for European elections, it’s now becoming clear who the winners and losers are across the EU’s 27 Member States.
Italy’s leader Giorgia Meloni has cemented her role as a key Brussels power broker with an estimated 26-30% of the votes, while in France, President Emmanuel Macron has performed so badly he’s been pushed to call snap elections.
A first estimate of election results produced by the European Parliament suggests the Green and liberal Renew parties each losing around 20 MEPs each, potentially endangering the pro-European majority needed to back top officials and support EU laws.
The projection, based on exit polls and other analysis, shows the Green party taking just 53 MEPs, compared to 72 in March 2024.
Renew, spearheaded by Macron, fell from 102 seats to 82, the figures suggest, leading the President to take the surprising move of dissolving the country’s National Assembly.
That collapse is accompanied by rising support for the extreme parties, even if some of those have not yet been allocated to political groups.
In France, projections suggest the far-right National Rally (RN) party, has secured a whopping 31.5% of the votes — more than twice the number gained by Macron, who released a message on Twitter.
«France needs a clear majority to operate in calm and and concord,» Macron said. «I’ve understood your message, your preoccupations, and I won’t leave them without a response.»
The far-right FPÖ is also predicted to top the poll in Austria, doubling its number of MEPs to six after gaining 27% of votes, according to a poll by the public broadcaster ORF.
Second place is a tight battle between the centre-right ÖVP, with five MEPs (down from seven) and 23.5%, and the socialists of SPÖ, with also five MEPs and 23% of votes.
In Germany, the Christian-Democrat CDU and CSU party is projected to get just about 30% of the vote, similar to 29% in 2019, followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany in second place with 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. The Social-Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz are following with 14%, and the Greens with 12%. Turnout is at 64%.
Exit polls suggest Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, which belongs to the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, has performed much better than the centre-left Democratic Party opposition, whose support is estimated at 21-25%.
Forza Italia and Lega, two other parties in Meloni’s governing coalition, don’t appear to have fared so well, with between 8 and 10.5% apiece.
Those rightward trends are confirmed in Spain, where Vox is expected to increase its representation by two to three MEPs, while newcomers «The Party Is Over», also identified as far-right populist, will gain their first ever two or three MEPs, exit polls suggest.
After four days of voting, the first projections for the new legislative chamber are still not final, and this article will be updated as and when new information arrives.
Netherlands already confirmed swing to the right
In countries such as the Netherlands, voting took place on Thursday — and its exit poll suggests Geert Wilders’ PVV party will scoop seven seats — confirming a swing towards eurosceptic right-wing parties predicted by previous polling.
That swing was not as extreme as some had expected, enabling the GreenLeft-Labour alliance, which is forecast by the exit poll to take eight Dutch seats in the European Parliament, to claim victory.
The elections, the world’s largest multi-state democratic exercise, determine which 720 Members of the European Parliament get to deliberate on EU legislation over the next five years.
It takes place after a turbulent period dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic and full-scale invasion of Ukraine — not to mention a soaring cost of living that came to dominate voter concerns.
Tasks ahead
Among MEPs’ first tasks will be to approve the candidate to lead the European Commission, with incumbent president Ursula von der Leyen hoping to secure a second term.
No single party has a majority in the European Parliament, and votes are often decided issue-by-issue by finding a coalition that commands the required majority.
The chamber has always been dominated by its two large groups, the centre-right European People’s Party and centre-left Socialists.
The two lost their combined majority in the 2019 elections, since when they’ve had to form informal alliances with parties such as the Greens and Liberals — and projections suggest they’re unlikely to regain it in 2024.
MEPs will also get to amend or oppose new legislative proposals — leaving the fate of the EU Green Deal, an ambitious set of laws to cut carbon emissions, in the balance.
Each country is allocated a set number of MEPs in line with population, ranging from 96 for Germany, to just six each in Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg.
For the first time since direct elections began in 1979, the count won’t include the UK — whose 73 MEPs left after Brexit day in February 2020.
