What to make of European election results

The continent is adjusting to a new political landscape today after eurosceptic, anti-immigration parties secured their best-ever results in the European elections, collectively winning almost a quarter of the chamber’s seats.

At the same time, European parliament president, Roberta Metsola, insists – not unreasonably – that “the constructive, pro-European centre has held”.

So are reports of a “populist right surge” overegged? 

Emmanuel Macron has undoubtedly emerged from the vote as one of the biggest losers. The rattled French president called a shock snap election last night after Marine Le Pen’s nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party more than doubled the vote share of Macron’s centrist alliance. Walter Ellis writes today in Reaction that Macron is banking – optimistically – on the possibility that much of the French public has used the European elections as a protest vote. 

Results were even more bruising for Belgium’s Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo. Today, he resigned following a major electoral defeat in which his party earned just seven seats while two of the countries’ nationalist right wing parties secured 24 and 20 respectively. 

Meanwhile, German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, warned today that “no-one is advised to simply go back to business”, as he lamented the fact that Germany’s hard-right AfD party has snapped up 15 seats, coming second after Germany’s centre-right. Scholz’s own centre-left Social Democrats party suffered its worst post-Second World War result in a nationwide vote.

In stark contrast, his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni emerged as one of the biggest winners of the European election results, with her Brothers of Italy party winning almost four times the vote share that it garnered in the last EU election in 2019, demonstrating her remarkable rise in popularity.

That said, major gains for Europe’s populist right is not the full picture. 

Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s party, which became the largest party with 17 per cent of the vote, while France’s Socialist party surged to 14 per cent of the vote.

Sweden proved to be one of the few European countries in which the hard-right is in retreat and the Greens surging while Spain’s centrist parties contained any major growth in votes for the anti-immigration Vox party: while Vox’s vote share rose to 9.6 per cent from 6.2 per cent in 2019, it fell back from last year’s national election, when it won 12.4 per cent.

When we look at the make-up of the European parliamentary groupings, we can also see that pro-European parties at the centre still command a majority, despite voters veering to the right. 

The “grand coalition” in the European Parliament between the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the liberal Renew Europe group and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats, did, in total, secure 403 seats – 56 per cent – in the 720-seat parliament.

As for the groups deemed “populist right”, they cohere in two blocs within the European Parliament. The Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group – which includes the likes of Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law and Justice – secured 73 seats in total while the Identity and Democracy – which is spear-headed by Le Pen’s National Rally – now has 58 seats. 

Yet lines between these so-called radical groups and the more centrist coalitions are not always so clearly defined, while unity within a group is often downright weak.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has, for instance, said that her centre-right EPP grouping could work with Meloni’s party. And Le Pen expelled all AfD lawmakers from the ID group in the European Parliament after the party’s top candidate, Maximilian Krah, told an Italian newspaper that not all members of the Nazis’ elite SS unit were war criminals. Like Meloni before her, Le Pen is attempting a re-brand, and distancing herself from her party’s fascist past, in a bid to court French moderates. 

At the same time, the rising popularity of figures like Le Pen puts pressure on centrist Macron-esque leaders to take tougher stance on issues such as immigration. Thus the line between the “hard right” and “moderate right” blurs further. 

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