Brussels, Jun 9 (EFE) – The European People’s Party (EPP) won Sunday’s elections and will remain the leading force in the European Parliament with 189 seats, according to preliminary results.
The Alliance of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D) will be the second largest group with 135 MEPs, and the Liberals of Renew Europe will win 80 seats.
The three main pro-European groups would thus have an absolute majority of 404 seats in the 720-seat European Parliament.
The Second and third forces would be the Group of Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) with 72 seats and the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) with 58.
These two groups add 130 MEPs, but it does not include other non- Eurosceptic and ultra-nationalist parties.
The Greens/European Free Alliance, which would add 52 seats, fell sharply to sixth place, as the Left remains the minority group in the European Parliament with 36 seats.
The Non-Inscrits Group – which does not belong to any of the European political families – would have 46 MEPs.
The new MEPs who are not part of any group, known as Others, would have 52 seats in the new hemicycle; however, many are likely to existing political groups in the coming weeks.
Far-right gains ground
Far-right forces made gains in Sunday’s European Parliament elections, particularly in the Netherlands, Austria, , Italy and .
The most notable were in , where the National Rally list swept its rivals, prompting Emmanuel Macron to call early elections.
The National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s party, is estimated to have won 31.50% of the vote.
In , the far-right Alternative for (AfD) came in second with 16%, ahead of the Socialists (13.9%) and the Ecologists (11.9%).
In Austria, the far right achieved a historic result with 27%, giving victory to the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), ahead of the People’s Party (23.50%) and the Socialists (23%).
In the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders’ far-right party won last year’s parliamentary elections, his party came in second on Sunday with 17.7%.
In Italy, the prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy (FDI), were also in first place, with between 26% and 30% of the vote, according to the exit poll published by public television RAI after the polls closed. EFE
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