The elections to renew the composition of the European Parliament this Sunday showed a marked advance of the extreme right, especially in France and Germanywhere this trend exceeds, according to the first estimates, the parties in power.
Tens of millions of Europeans, from Portugal to Lithuania, voted this Sunday to elect their representatives to the European Parliament.
The election of its 720 deputiesA new cycle opens in the bloc, and the new legislators will appoint who will preside over the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU.
In France, exit polls showed that the far-right party National Group obtained more than 30% of votesapproximately double that of the liberal coalition launched by President Emmanuel Macon.
The French far-right Jordan Bardella 28 years old, immediately called Macron to call early legislative elections, shortly after the Elysée announced an appearance by the president on Sunday night.
In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, exit polls indicated that Prime Minister Olaf Sholz’s Social Democratic party got the worst result in its history and was relegated to third place, behind the right and the extreme right.
According to polls carried out for public television, the conservative alliance (CDU-CSU) would receive between 29.5% and 30% of the votes. The far-right AfD party comes in second place with around 16%, and Scholz’s SPD party, in third with 14%.
Germany is the country that will elect the largest number of Eurolegislators, 96, followed by France (81), Italy (76) and Spain (61). Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus choose 6 each.
In Austria, exit polls put the far-right FPO party in front, with around to 27% of the votes.
Spain, the PP
The conservative Popular Party would have been the most voted option in the European elections this Sunday in Spain and would obtain between 21 and 23 MEPs, although it could tie with the PSOE, which would obtain between 20 and 22, according to the Sigma Dos survey for the public television RTVE and the regional network FORTA.
According to the data from this survey, made public at the close of the polling stations, the unknown regarding the difference in seats in the European Parliament between the PP and the socialists of the PSOE will remain until the last moment.
The survey gives 32.4% of the votes for the PP and 30.2% for the PSOEand places the far-right Vox in third place, which with 10.4% of the votes would obtain between 6 and 7 MEPs.
According to exit polls in Greece, the conservative party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis leads the results ahead of the leftist movement Syriza and the socialist party Pasok.
In the election held on Thursday in the Netherlands, an alliance of the center-left and the greens It surpassed the far-right PVV party by a minimal difference.
Projections across the EU indicate that the European People’s Party (EPP, right) bloc will remain the strongest in the European Parliament, followed by the Socialists & Democrats (S&D, social democrats) group.
Meanwhile, the Renew Europe bloc should remain the third most important, although weighed down by the advance of the right and the extreme right.
Polls indicate that far-right parties could obtain up to a quarter of the seats, to the point of threatening the Greens bench.
The far-right political family is divided into two blocks, but a clear demonstration of force would position them as unavoidable interlocutors in the decision-making process.
On one hand, there is the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) bloc and on the other, that of Identity and Democracy (ID), separated by their position on the EU itself.
The far right shows its muscles
The current president of the Commission and candidate for a new five-year term, the German Ursula von del Leyen, belonging to the EPP, voted on Sunday morning in the town of Burgdorf, in Lower Saxony.
Von der Leyen opened the door to specific alliances with the Italian prime minister’s group from the extreme right, Giorgia Meloni.
In Spain, voters’ support for the EU remains high – 67% are favorable, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey – perhaps because they associate the modernization of the country after the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) with joining the bloc.
In just over a year, Spain has held municipal, regional, national and now European elections, and each one has the flavor of revenge for the previous one, between the socialists of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the conservatives of the Popular Party (PP). . , led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“It is important that with our vote we decide if we want a Europe that advances or a Europe that goes backwards. And I hope it’s the former, rather than the latter.”said the president of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, after voting.
By 4:00 p.m. GMT, voter turnout in Spain was approximately 38.3%, well below the 49.4% that had been recorded at the same time five years ago.
Another country where the far right must obtain a solid result is Hungary. “I hope that a majority favorable to peace will emerge from these elections,” declared the Prime Minister, the nationalist Viktor Orban, after voting in Budapest.
Orban’s Party, Fidesz, has approximately 50% of voting intentionsand in second place is the opposition party Tisza, with about 27%.
In neighboring Poland, one voter, Andrzej Zemiejewski, a 51-year-old doctor, said after voting in Warsaw that his most pressing concern It is the reinforcement “of security”given the proximity of his country to the scene of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
