The far-right gains more seats in the EU Parliament, but the power of the center-right grows the most. The most dramatic result was in France.
The rise of the far-right in the EU elections has been talked about all spring. The national conservative ECR group and the far-right ID group get more seats.
However, the growth of the far-right in the large member states of France and Germany is a much more dramatic change than their additional seats in the European Parliament.
Success in EU elections predicts success in future national elections.
In France, the result will be seen soon, because the president Emmanuel Macron even ordered new parliamentary elections because of the result. The far-right National Alliance received 31 percent of the vote. The president’s own Renaissance party lagged far behind.
The EU will turn properly to the extreme right if more and more far-right prime ministers come to lead the states. In the EU Parliament, far-right MEPs do not get the same power, especially when they are hardly able to form a united group.
Investigator Stefan Lehne The Carnegie Europe think tank stated that the Hungarian Prime Minister did not Viktor Orbán alone can’t do much for things. The far-right’s power will clearly increase if there are three to four more like-minded prime ministers.
Nothing is decided without the EPP
The largest group in the EU Parliament remains the national conservative European People’s Party EPP, which includes a coalition from Finland. EPP clearly increased its number of seats.
At the end of the election night, the chairman of the EPP Manfred Weber stepped onto the stage in the Brussels parliament hall and in a gentle voice offered cooperation to the social democrats, the liberal Renew group and the Greens.
It is the same composition that, in the closing season, has usually been sought behind the decisions in order to obtain a majority.
However, an alternative has also been a centre-left group, where the majority has been formed by the Social Democrats, Renew, the Greens and the Left. With this composition, a majority will no longer be created, as the Greens and Renew both suffer losses of twenty seats.
It means that EPP is always needed for decisions. This increases the power of the EPP and moves the parliament to the right.
The groups will be renewed
The Parliament first chooses the president of the Commission on the proposal of the EU leaders. Then the groups can demand their own goals in the commission’s work program in return for approval. The far-right can also be heard here, at least ECR.
The others have refused to cooperate with both the ID and ECR groups, with the exception of the EPP, for which cooperation with at least some of the group’s parties would be acceptable.
If it wanted, the EPP could do a more right-wing policy with the ECR group, but even then the support of other groups is still needed.
Based on the preliminary results, the number of seats of the National Alliance in Parliament will increase from 18 to 30. That’s half of the places in the entire ID group.
The number of seats for the German AfD increases from nine to 18. The party is now among those without a group because Marine Le Pen gave it the boot from the ID group because of Nazi statements and pro-Russia sentiment.
The proportion of people without a group is high at the beginning of the season, because there are new arrivals.
The parliamentary groups will probably change somewhat, at least on the far right. There is also dissatisfaction in the Renew group when the Dutch Liberal Party agreed to a far-right government.
There are also losers on the far right. Poland’s Law and Justice party looks set to lose 8 seats. In Italy, power swings within the far right: the prime minister by Giorgia Meloni Italy’s Veljet increased its number of seats from ten to 23 based on the preliminary result, while the figures for Lega were somewhat the other way around. Both the Basic Finns and the Sweden Democrats lost seats.