The European People’s Party (EPP) has won the European elections with German front-runner Ursula von der Leyen and secured mandates, according to the European Parliament’s first official forecast. According to the forecast, the EPP will have 186 of the 705 seats in the EU Parliament. This will be ten more than in 2019.
Far-right parties such as the FPÖ, the German AfD and the Rassemblement National in France have registered significant gains compared to elections held five years ago. But even if all the right-wing parties got together, they would have less than 200 seats, so far from an absolute majority.
The Social Democratic Party is in second place
The second strongest faction – according to the current factional distribution – remains the Social Democrats. According to the forecast, they will have 133 mandates (most recently 139).
This was followed by the Liberals falling to 82 seats (most recently 102), as well as the two previous right-wing populist coalitions, EKR and ID. EKR has 70 (last 69) seats, ID has 60 (last 49). However, German AfD MPs were not included.
The AfD is counted among the unaffiliated parties, having been excluded from the IT category just before the European elections.
According to the forecast, the Green Party will suffer a major defeat in the elections. As a result, they have only 53 seats (previously 71).