Europeans started casting their ballots in the Netherlands, Ireland, and the Czech Republic on Thursday and Friday in what might turn out to be the most controversial elections in the EU’s history, while the rest of the countries have yet to vote across the union this weekend.
The moderate conservatives of the EPP are expected to win a clear majority in the overall vote, the Euronews Super Poll on eight EU countries predicted.
The socialists are projected to be the second force. The liberals of Renew Europe should place third despite likely losing a considerable number of seats.
As for the far right, despite its robust growth, pollsters say that it will not dominate the new European Parliament.
“The vast majority of MEPs coming to Brussels following the elections will still remain robustly pro-European. Even delegations from ECR to certain degree will not question the absolute essence of the European Union,” said Tomasz Kaniecki, Euronews Polls Centre analyst.
Germany
The EPP in Germany is set to reach a major score of slightly over 30% of votes. The far right is uncomfortably set at the second position, threatened by the slow but steady growth of the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The AfD has slightly slackened its growth after being hit by the scandals related to the embarrassing statements of sympathy to Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS veterans by its former European elections lead candidate Maximilian Krah and the spy cases with China and Russia that embroiled some of its members at the European Parliament during the electoral campaign.
The pollsters don’t rule out that the SPD’s social-democrats (S&D) might surpass the far right. The distance between the AfD and the SPD is still too close to call.
The Greens occupy a disappointing fourth position.
The liberals of the FDP (Renew Europe) have been losing ground, dragged by the average negative trend of other Renew-affiliated parties in Europe.
However, had these projections to be confirmed after the ballots counting, they would represent rather bitter results for the current so-called “traffic-light” national ruling coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens. Only the majority shareholders, the social-democrats, could claim a partially acceptable result thanks to their slow pace of consensus recovery.
The result of the CDU-CSU (EPP) could be regarded as a relative and objective reverberating success of the outgoing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a historical member of the CDU and former defence minister in Angela Merkel’s government.
According to a pan-EU projections overview, the moderate forces could prevail over the so-called protest voters.
Yet, on a country-by-country basis, the predictions for the far-right forces are still impressive, as in France.
France
The National Rally of Marine Le Pen, a member of Identity and Democracy, is expected to win large, taking advantage of the social discontent of the French.
The RN list, led by Jordan Bardella, is expected to almost double Valérie Hayer’s Renaissance liberals of Renew Europe.* President Emmanuel Macron’s group at the European Parliament is expected to face an electoral defeat, pollsters forecasted the polls.
Macron’s popularity is low for national political reasons. The Élysée’s group of reference in Strasbourg is Renew Europe. The French MEPs from the Renaissance party have been the backbone of the grand coalition despite its numerical minority size compared with its senior partners, the EPP and the S&D.
Macronisme was regarded by the moderates across Europe as a dynamic political proposal that could have relaunched the EU after the financial crisis and Brexit, but according to the polls, it will hardly be the case again in the new legislature.
The French Socialists (S&D) of Raphaël Glucksman, like their pairs in other big European countries, are slowly and gently recovering, and they still hope to overtake Renew and settle in the second position.
Italy
War and peace and the Ukrainian question are likely to become the most important topics for the next EU legislature. The European Parliament’s political forces will be asked to overcome their divisions to tackle this major geopolitical challenge, which is why the results of the European elections in Italy seem relevant for the next legislature.
There, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party is set to win big. Her Brothers of Italy, or FdL, is a member of the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group that might back the moderate forces in order to create a functional majority.
The pollsters and the EU politics “bookmakers” are betting on the fracture between the radical right of ECR and Le Pen’s lead Identity and Democracy.
If it happens, the current big tent coalition, which is likely to be revived, will count ECR’s votes to make the European Parliament functional.
The big shots of the ECR are Meloni’s FdI and Kaczyński’s PiS from Poland. Both parties are openly pro-NATO and pro-West. The EU could count on them when major decisions concerning Ukraine are to be adopted.
Steven Van Hecke, a professor of EU Politics at the Ku Leuven, explained: “There is still a big divide, even between the ECR and the Identity and Democracy group. So I would rather see the EPP working together with the ECR to negotiate deals with the social democrats and the liberals than these two making deals with identity and democracy.”
Polls predict that the PD (S&D) has increased its ratings to two times that of Salvini’s Lega.
Spain
After Germany, Spain is the other stronghold of the EPP in this election. The PP’s moderate-conservatives are to win the elections. Yet, the socialists of Prime Minister Sanchez are right behind them in the polls, and the result is still too close to call.
The Euronews Super Polls confirm that far-right Vox (ECR) will reach a rather good score, yet not as strong as its leadership and supporters expected.
However, EU voters will clearly shift the balance of the union to the right, reverberating in the EU institutions and affecting the reality throughout the bloc at the national level.
Poland
Poland is politically peculiar, as pollsters say the centre-left and the left are almost nonexistent. The clash of the giants in the Central European country will be between the Coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, KO (EPP), and the PiS (ECR) ultraconservatives.
The PiS party is leading the polls over the KO,* yet the projections still suggest a result that is too close to call.
