The top five national delegations in the next EU Parliament 

The top national delegations will reshape the Parliament’s balance of powers while feeding new priorities into the legislative work, and with voting set to start on Thursday (6 June), Europe Elects’ final projections for Euractiv lay out what could lie ahead.

According to the latest projections, the top five national delegations in the coming term could be France’s Rassemblement National with 31 seats; Germany’s CDU/CSU with 28 seats; Spain’s Partido Popular with 23 seats; and Spain’s Socialists (PSOE) and Poland’s centre-right parties—both tied in fifth place with 20 seats each.  

The European Parliament comprises political groups, where each national party sits alongside like-minded colleagues from other EU countries.  

Bigger national delegations have a wide range of benefits, such as more money allocated from the Parliament’s budget, more leverage in negotiations, more chances to get leading positions such as committee chairmanships, and a bigger weight in shaping the overall parliamentary agenda.  

For instance, the Spanish Socialists’ weight and influence within the S&D group ultimately allowed them to score 10 out of 20 coordination posts in the last term with each group’s political leader in the committees. Furthermore, Spain’s ties with Latin America translated into S&D demanding the chairmanship of the Euro-Latin American assembly in 2019.  

Spain and Poland shake Germany’s monopoly in the centre-right 

The Spanish delegation (Partido Popular) within the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is projected to grow to 23 seats. At the same time, Poland’s two centre-right parties, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition and Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, though running separately, will sit together in the EPP with 20 projected seats. 

Germany’s conservative parties CDU/CSU are projected to gain 28 seats, remaining the largest delegation. 

However, the new winners will affect the group’s ideological line, and the traditional German influence will have less margin. After the elections, the Spaniards’ and the Poles’ voices are likely to grow louder within the group’s high-ranking position. 

The Spanish hegemony 

An increasingly polarised political landscape has brought Spain back to an almost-two-party system, where the Socialists (PSOE) and centre-right (Partido Popular) are amassing voters previously held by other parties, such as the now-defunct liberal Ciudadanos, left-wing Sumar, and far-right Vox.  

Both PSOE and PP are projected to be among the top five biggest national delegations, with around 20 and 23 seats, respectively. 

Plus, the Spanish Socialists’ score will leave them leaders of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, followed by Italy’s Partito Democratico (17 seats) and Germany’s SPD (14 seats).  

The Spanish hegemony on the Socialists is now even clearer than in 2019 when they took control after the Germans’ long-standing grip on the presidency. 

Italy and France lead the extreme right 

Two of the largest delegations will be located on the extreme-right side of the hemicycle. 

Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is all but certain to snatch the leadership of ID from Italy’s Lega party. France’s far-right is projected to score 31 seats—the largest in the European Parliament—followed by the Netherlands’ PVV party with nine seats. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’Italia, is expected to hold the most power within the ECR group with 22 seats, followed by PiS from Poland with 18. Italy would then take over the ECR top spot from PiS. 

Given this shift in ID and ECR, Europe’s right-wing leaders have turned to Meloni and Le Pen ahead of the election to seek direction. Many, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have asked them to join ID’s and ECR’s forces into one single supergroup. 

Macron’s coalition loses influence  

French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal coalition is likely to be one of the most obvious losers of the elections.  

It has dropped out of the top five and is now projected to score 15 seats, down from 23 last term. 

This may threaten France’s grip on the liberal Renew Europe group, especially its presidency, which the French have held twice in a row (Stéphane Séjourné, Valérie Hayer). 

This is even more likely as the current French President of the Group, Valérie Hayer, has antagonised parts of ALDE—a faction within the Renew Europe group bringing together many national liberal parties—by demanding to expel Dutch party VVD for allying with the far right to form a government.  

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Alice Taylor] 

Read more with Euractiv

Romanian far-right leader investigated for forging signatures for EU election

Prosecutors are investigating George Simion, leader of Romania's far-right AUR party, for allegedly orchestrating the falsification of thousands of signatures needed for Silvestru Șoșoacă's candidacy as an independent in the EU elections, something AUR denies.