European Election

European Elections: Millions go to the polls to elect 720 members to EU parliament

Far-right parties projected to make sizable gains but mainstream groups remain on course to win solid majority

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is seeking a second term in the role. She remains the front-runner and has raised the prospect of a rightward shift in EU policy. Photograph: Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Sat Jun 08 2024 - 09:04

Far-right parties are projected to make sizable gains in this weekend’s European Parliament elections. But infighting and scandal have left some nationalist groups in disarray, potentially limiting their political influence and giving the mainstream parties — which are still on course to win a solid majority — some breathing space.

Around 360 million people across the EU are eligible to vote on the 720 MEPs who will form the parliament for the next five years. The Brussels-based parliament adopts and amends EU legislative proposals and, importantly, votes on who will become the next European Commission president.

Ireland will elect 14 members to the parliament, with voting on 73 candidates, spread across the Dublin, Ireland South and Midlands-North-West constituencies, closing on Friday night. However, official results will not start to be announced until Sunday night, when the polls have closed across the EU.

This year’s campaign was thrown into disarray for the right-wing Alternative for Germany, which has suffered a number of setbacks over the past few weeks.

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A series of scandals shook the party, ranging from a conference on the planned deportation of asylum seekers as well as naturalised Germans to a bribery and spying affair. The incidents tainted the party’s lead EU candidate, Maximilian Krah, and his deputy, Petr Bystron, a member of Germany’s lower house of parliament. The AfD leadership told both candidates to stop campaigning, but things got worse from there.

Election posters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party and of the socially-liberal Volt party hang from lampposts in Berlin, Germany ahead of the European Elections. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Two weeks ago, French nationalist Marine Le Pen publicly distanced her National Rally from the AfD after Mr Krah said not all members of the Nazi SS paramilitary organisation were criminals. The Identity and Democracy alliance in the European Parliament, which includes National Rally, voted to expel the German party.

Unlike prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads Italy’s hard-right Brothers of Italy, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has failed to move her party more into the political mainstream. Plus, it’s unclear whether the AfD will be able to join a political group again in the newly elected EU parliament.

As a result of this series of mishaps, the AfD has lost its momentum in the polls. In the most recent national EU poll from the Insa institute, it dropped from a peak of 23 per cent last July to 16 per cent on June 1st. However, it remains the second-most popular party in Germany, ahead of chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.

Without the AfD, ID is projected to win 68 seats in the European Parliament, according to a polling average compiled by Europe Elects. That would be down from the December projection when it appeared on track to win 93.

In spite of the surge projected by the polls, European officials remained skeptical that the results would lead to a far-right tide that some have predicted.

In the Netherlands, which voted Thursday, the far-right party of Geert Wilders only managed second place according to early exit polls — in part because of many of his voters stayed home.

Geert Wilders of the PVV casts his ballot in the European election. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

There are seven political blocs in the current parliament. The largest is the centre-right European People’s Party, an alliance of 84 parties from 44 countries whose members include commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Together with the Socialists and centrist-liberal Renew, they hold an absolute majority in the chamber and are expected to retain it, although the margin is projected to be smaller.

The number of seats gained by the far-right, and whether they are able to form broad alliances, will dictate if they can follow through on their policy priorities.

And while Europe’s right-wing parties vary greatly in their beliefs, they tend to agree on restricting migration into the EU, watering down centralised control on rule-of-law issues and rolling back European initiatives aimed at slowing down climate change.

One of the most important aspects of the election will be the process of choosing who gets the top EU jobs. Typically, the role of commission president goes to the group that wins the most seats, and the EPP’s Ms von der Leyen remains the front-runner.

“To build a strong Europe we need a strong majority in the political center — this means pro-EU, pro-Ukraine, pro-rule of law,” she told reporters while campaigning in Porto, Portugal this week. “Extremists from the far-left and the far-right are trying to divide us, we will not let this happen.”

But Ms von der Leyen needs parliament’s approval to seal her attempt to secure a second term, and last time she secured this by just nine votes. She has raised the prospect of a rightward shift in EU policy by signaling she is open to working with parts of the ECR group, which includes Ms Meloni.

Some national leaders, including Mr Scholz in Germany, have warned her not to seek the support of populists.

“A commission president must always rely on the democratic parties of Europe, on a platform including the Social Democrats, the Conservatives, the Liberals,” he said earlier this week. “There must not be any far-right or right-wing populist parties.” - Bloomberg