I've been trying to follow these elections - I really have - but between the language gap and the different coalitions and groups, I'm struggling to actually understand what's happening on an EU-wide level. News commentary and discussion here seems to indicate a substantial shift rightward, but the preliminary results show the three conservative groups (EEP, ECR, and ID) gaining only 21 seats in a body of 720. With the additional 15 seats added overall, that's just an increase of 2%, from 42% to 44%.
I assume there's something in the unaligned/unrecognized and non-party results that explains the rest of the story - and I know that even slight changes can change the ruling coalition - but I'm not finding it clearly explained in any of the news around the election. Can someone here help me out? Why are these results seen as such a rightward shift from 2019?
I assume AFD was counted last time and it isn't counted this time around. They had 11 seats last time and it seems more like 17 seats this time. Add that to that RW bloc and you go from a 21 seat gain of which 11 are AFD loss seats to a 38 seat gain.
Obviously it doesn't matter because EU parliaments are just effectively grand coalitions between EPP.
