Brussels, 10 June 2024! ( TDI): Far-right parties are predicted to win a record number of seats in the European Parliament elections, which would deliver a stinging rebuke to Brussels’ political mainstream and add uncertainty to Europe’s future.
After three days of voting across the European Union’s 27 member states, an exit poll showed that far-right parties were set to win around 150 of the parliament’s 720 seats, which will likely make it harder for mainstream parties to form majorities needed to pass laws, according to initial results.
The full results are expected today, marking the beginning of the coalition-building process. Europe’s centrists are now working to set aside their differences to counter the rise of the resurgent far right.
Most of the far-right gains were concentrated in countries with significant numbers of seats: France, Italy, and Germany.
An exit poll showed the far-right National Rally (RN) party secured 31.2 % of votes. French President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance scraped only 15.2% of the vote, statistics revealed by French news agencies.
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Like Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also suffered a stinging blow in the exit poll, as his Social Democrats (SD) scored their worst-ever result of 14%, while the mainstream Christian Democrats Party (CDU) came top with 29.5% of the vote, according to preliminary results of elections.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s position as possible kingmaker was confirmed by exit polls that showed her hard-right Brothers of Italy party winning 26%-30% of the vote, comfortably ahead of its center-left rivals on 21%-25%.
Many analysts say that a rightward shift inside the European Parliament may make it tougher to pass new legislation that might be needed to respond to security challenges, the impact of climate change, or industrial competition from China and the United States.
Despite gains for the far and radical right, the mainstream, pro-European parties were on course to hold their majority.
The center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which also topped the polls in Spain and Poland, won the largest number of seats, boosting the chances of its lead candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, to secure a second term as European Commission president.
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