European Parliament elections, June 2024

[DavidB.]

Next year, between June 6th and 9th, there will be elections for the European Parliament in all 27 member states.

In 2019, before Brexit, the aggregate result was as follows:

EPP 187 (-34)
S&D 154 (-31)
Renew 108 (+39)
Greens/EFA 74 (+22)
ID 73 (+37)
ECR 62 (-15)
The Left 41 (-11)

Non-Inscrits 57 (+37)

Total: 751

After Brexit, there are 705 seats left and the distribution changed slightly. Also, some parties dropped out of their groups or switched groups.

There is a proposal to reapportion part of the seats, so that some Member States would have more seats, and a proposal to let Europeans vote twice (essentially like Germans), one for their "constituency" (i.e. just for MEPs from the same country, like it used to be) and one for a transnational list, allowing Europeans to vote for MEPs from outside their Member States - but the European Council seems to strike down the latter one.

POLITICO's poll of polls currently projects the following outcome if the election were to be held today:

EPP 165
S&D 137
ECR 84
Renew 82
ID 72
New/Unaffiliated 47
Greens/EFA 40
Non-Inscrits 39
The Left 39

So Renew and The Greens would take a big nosedive, owed mostly to the decreased popularity of En Marche LREM Renaissance in France and the Greens in Germany, who won a significant part of these groups' respective seats last time.

That directly brings me to an important point: large swings in big Member States have a big effect on the outcome of the EP election as a whole.

Caveat two: especially on the right, things could be fluid and alliances aren't set in stone. The Russian invasion in Ukraine has put inter-party relationships among the European right under big pressure. Additionally, with Hungarian Fidesz being expelled from EPP, the puzzle pieces need to be put together again: many parties would like to cooperate with Fidesz, but not all of these parties are eager to cooperate with one another. To be continued...

[Zinneke]

Metsola meeting with Meloni (who is the most significant far right leader in Europe) and Weber courting them too shows that the EPP may want to end the Grand Coalition in favour of a right-wing coalition. EPP also met with Le Pen to potentially discuss RN joining forces with them if the French "republican" right disintegrates with them. It won't happen I think but it shows how mentalities are changing.

[MaxQue]

Metsola meeting with Meloni (who is the most significant far right leader in Europe) and Weber courting them too shows that the EPP may want to end the Grand Coalition in favour of a right-wing coalition. EPP also met with Le Pen to potentially discuss RN joining forces with them if the French "republican" right disintegrates with them. It won't happen I think but it shows how mentalities are changing.

When you scratch Conservatives, they bleed brown.

[Diouf]

Der (europäische) Föderalist also has regular projections of how the new EP will look.
Their May projection, where the distribute new parties to their most likely group, look like this:

EPP 172
S&D 137
Renew 99
ID 83
ECR 82
Greens/EFA 54
The Left 50
Non-Inscrits 28

So the Greens and Renew are in better shape here:

From their blog:
"Although the Greens are in crisis in their main stronghold Germany, several other member parties of the Greens/EFA group have recently improved their standing in the polls. These include the French EELV (EGP), the Czech Piráti (PPEU) and the Swedish MP (EGP), which is now back above the national four per cent threshold. Moreover, the Luxembourg Piratepartei and the Dutch Volt party would enter parliament for the first time.
All in all, this brings the projection for the Greens/EFA group to 50 seats (+8), its best figure in two years. For the European Greens, who suffered one setback after another in the polls during the first half of the parliamentary term, things seem to be moving forward again."

"The RE group is performing somewhat weaker than eight weeks ago. In both Germany and France, the Liberals went through a crisis in the spring from which they are slowly recovering. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, too, RE member parties are doing slightly better than in March.

In other countries, however, the situation is considerably worse: In Italy, the liberal-centrist alliance between Azione (EDP) and Italia Viva (EDP) ended with mutual personal accusations between the two party leaders. In Finland, Keskusta (ALDE) suffered a crushing defeat in the national parliamentary election in April and has fallen further behind in the polls since. In the Netherlands, the liberal-conservative governing party VVD (ALDE) has been hit by the rapid rise of the agrarian-populist BBB (–). Overall, the RE group falls back to 92 seats (–⁠2) in the seat projection – its worst performance since summer 2020."


You can see the seat projection for each party in the table on the site here:

https://www.foederalist.eu/2023/05/ep-seat-projection-may-2023.html

[Ethelberth]

Which group will BBB join?

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Renew and G/EFA seem to be the ones that will drop the most in Flanders as well. Both are hurt a lot and seem to be heading to a loss. They're not polling well.

S&D, The Left and ID probably will improve their standing (though slightly, we don't have too many seats to elect as well). ECR probably status quo or a loss of 1 seat. Same for EPP, status quo or a loss of 1-2 seats.

Based on current polls, I suspect Flanders to be like:

ID - 3 (same)
ECR - 3 (same)
S&D - 2 (+1)
EPP - 1 (-1)
The Left - 1 (+1)
G/EFA - 1 (same)
Renew - 1 (-1)

ID only narrowly had that third seat, they might be heading to a fourth but might fall short and Greens fell short of a 2nd one, last time, now they'll be defending the one they have but they should be okay doing that. Open VLD (Renew) is almost certain to lose their 2nd seat and so is CD&V for EPP. Vooruit - rising in the polls - probably get an additional seat and The Left gets their first if they continue to poll like this.

EPP get 1 seat from German-speaking community (is always like that)

And in French speaking Belgium i don't expect too much change.

But Greens could lose 1 here while The Left gains 1. Though S&D is a contendor for a 3rd seat but i think the margins are too close so it's likelier its a fight between The Left and Greens here. If Les engagés disappoint a lot, they might lose theirs seat as well, but i don't think thats very likely and I suspect they're underpolled.

S&D - 2 (same)
Renew - 2 (same)
The Left - 2 (+1)
G/EFA - 1 (-1)
EPP - 1 (same)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The result in Italy (which of course is the third largest EU country) looks like it should deliver little change except for dozens of ID members being substituted by ECR ones, and possibly a small RE delegation being elected but that depends on Calenda and Renzi figuring out their deal. In contrast to parliamentary elections the trend for the Five Star Movement here has been to underperform their polls so one might also expect them to take a larger hit, although it would be a virtual one since half of their MEPs elected in 2019 have already left the party anyway.

[Diouf]

In Denmark, my current guess would be to distribute the first 13 seats as below. And then the 14th seat quite open between Social Democrats, Social Liberals and Liberal Alliance. If parliament is expanded, which it really shouldn't be, then there would be a 15th seat to distribute between those parties as well.

Social Democrats (S&D) 3
SPP (Greens/EFA) 2
Liberals (ALDE) 2
Liberal Alliance (Most likely ALDE, perhaps EPP) 1
Conservatives (EPP) 1
Denmark Democrats (Probably ECR) 1
Red-Green Alliance (GUE-NGL) 1
Moderates (Likely ALDE) 1
DPP (currently ID) 1

[Zinneke]

If parliament is expanded, which it really shouldn't be,

Yes, sorry for going on a tangent, but it will be very interesting to see if the institution itself is strengthened or weakened by the Council (who obviously both see it as a nuisance but also participate in the ivory tower of politics in thinking that the solution to every bureaucratic problem is "make it bigger").

Metsola is at least on the surface lobbying hard to preserve the layers and layers of non-elected civil servants that serve the EP but I personally think the scrapping of the "Spitzenkandidaten" system was an indication that the Council no longer take it as seriously as before and want to potentially downsize it, and Qatarigate is just one of many incidents that incline them to believe it is overbloated. Its a shame because the Spitzenkandidaten system was for me essential in at least driving a theoretical notion of pan-EU "demos" that could have been built on, but a backroom deal stitch up is the likely outcome of who becomes Commission President, not the EP election.

Also, given Metsola also wants the Commission top job, the EP's most direct advocate is the type to just sacrifice its interests for her own personal career, but she is currently playing a double game because she knows that if her Commission President bid fails she can fall back onto the EP president and trashing your colleagues for the confirmation hearing of both roles wouldn't be a good look.

My personal view is that the place could easily be cut in half in terms of size and purview, but then Malta or Belgian german speakers would get fussy. So instead we have human rights committees where MEPs do puff speeches about autocracies and pass asinine legislation while raking in bribes.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Yeah, European Parliament is hilarious, having a legislative body that can't propose it's own legislation or control anything executive makes a lot of the claims about EU democracy a hollow joke.

I feel like a solution to the problem of bloating is to introduce the concept of weighted voting, to preserve delegates from minority communities and regions but reduce the number of filler MEP's who have Essenitaly nothing to do* by allowing large countries and regions to appoint fewer MEP's who's vote is weighted more heavily.

*not even backroom backstabbing as outside of a few in leadership positions there's nothing really to gain.

[Diouf]

Agence Europe reports that the Coreper has accepted a compromise proposal which expands the EP to 720 seats. It's behind a paywall, so can't see the exact distribution, but Danish MEPs report it means an extra Danish seat, so now 15. With acceptance om Coreper, it would take something really weird for the Council proper to not approve it.

 https://agenceurope.eu/en/bulletin/article/13230/2

[Logical]

Yeah, European Parliament is hilarious, having a legislative body that can't propose it's own legislation or control anything executive makes a lot of the claims about EU democracy a hollow joke.

I feel like a solution to the problem of bloating is to introduce the concept of weighted voting, to preserve delegates from minority communities and regions but reduce the number of filler MEP's who have Essenitaly nothing to do* by allowing large countries and regions to appoint fewer MEP's who's vote is weighted more heavily.

*not even backroom backstabbing as outside of a few in leadership positions there's nothing really to gain.

I must disagree. Where else can European countries dump their oldest, loudest and most obnoxious politicians?

[Mike88]

Yeah, European Parliament is hilarious, having a legislative body that can't propose it's own legislation or control anything executive makes a lot of the claims about EU democracy a hollow joke.

I feel like a solution to the problem of bloating is to introduce the concept of weighted voting, to preserve delegates from minority communities and regions but reduce the number of filler MEP's who have Essenitaly nothing to do* by allowing large countries and regions to appoint fewer MEP's who's vote is weighted more heavily.

*not even backroom backstabbing as outside of a few in leadership positions there's nothing really to gain.

I must disagree. Where else can European countries dump their oldest, loudest and most obnoxious politicians?

Spot on.

[MRCVzla]

Agence Europe reports that the Coreper has accepted a compromise proposal which expands the EP to 720 seats. It's behind a paywall, so can't see the exact distribution, but Danish MEPs report it means an extra Danish seat, so now 15. With acceptance om Coreper, it would take something really weird for the Council proper to not approve it.

 https://agenceurope.eu/en/bulletin/article/13230/2

The European Council proposal mentioned in the first post originally increases the size of the EP up to 11 seats (a total of 716). Spain and the Netherlands would gain 2 MEPs each while Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland gains 1 MEP each. The Coreper (ambassadors) report suggests add 4 more seats to the Council proposal, in this report France would gain 2 MEPs and Belgium and Poland would also increase to 1 MEP each their delegations.

https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/summary.do?id=1748058&t=d&l=en
https://electomania.es/los-27-plantean-sumar-dos-nuevos-escanos-a-espana-en-el-parlamento-europeo-28jl23/ (Spanish)

Around September/October is expected the final say on the redistribution.

[Storr]

I decided to estimate the number of MEPs the 3 countries closest to joining the EU would receive if they did so now or before the 2024 elections. Technically Serbia is closer to joining the EU than Albania and North Macedonia when it comes to the number of acquis chapters opened and closed. But, Serbia will not join the bloc as long as the Kosovo dispute is unresolved. The demographic numbers are from wikipedia, so usual caveats apply.

Montenegro:        2022 population 617,213  -   6 MEPs (the minimum for any member)

North Macedonia: 2022 population 1,831,712 - 9 MEPs (same as Latvia, pop. 1,883,008)

Albania:              2022 population 2,777,689 - 11 MEPs (same as Lithuania, pop. 2,857,279)

Added on top of the proposed 15 new MEPs for the upcoming 2024 elections, the hypothetical 26 EU expansion MEPs would result in a European Parliament with a size of 746 members. Interestingly, that's quite close to the pre-Brexit composition of 751 MEPs.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/mathieugallard/status/1723657145030197513

[Diouf]

Consultancy firm Rud Petersen has made the following prediction of vote share for the Danish parties for Politiken. I have added seat figures based on the known and predicted electoral alliances. We know Social Democrats, SPP and Alternative will ally, and that Liberal Alliance + Conservatives will do the same. My best guess is then an alliance between DPP and New Right, and one between Liberals, Moderates and Social Liberals.

Social Democrats 20.2% 3 seats
SPP 15.9% 3
Liberal Alliance 11.7% 2
Liberals 9.2% 2
Denmark Democrats 9.8% 1
Red-Green Alliance 8.1% 1
Moderates 7.6% 1
Conservatives 5.9% 1
DPP 4.2 1
Social Liberals 4.1% 0
New Right 2.2% 0
Alternative 1.1% 0

For the new parties, Moderates will go to Renew. Denmark Democrats seems very likely to join ECR, while Liberal Alliance seems to ponder between EPP and Renew.

[Diouf]

The Liberal Alliance lead candidate Henrik Dahl has announced that the party will join EPP in the European Parliament. He said it was a difficult decision between them and Renew, but that ultimately Renew is too federalist and too much like the Social Liberals. He says the biggest reservations with the EPP is about their opposition to environmental and climate legislation, but that this is an issue where the party could follow their own policies.

https://avisendanmark.dk/politik/i-en-fortrolig-samtale-med-lars-loekke-blev-henrik-dahl-bekraeftet-i-en-ny-erkendelse-om-eu

[Diouf]

The European Council President Charles Michel will run as a candidate for the European Parliament.

Michel plans to take up his seat in the European Parliament mid-July if he’s elected, meaning EU leaders will have to agree quickly on a successor for his vacated Council post. If they don’t, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose country will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July, would lead the meetings — a broker-role normally undertaken by the European Council president

It’s the first time a sitting Council president will be a candidate in a European parliamentary election. Michel would normally have stayed on in the job until the end of November, when the new College of Commissioners would be installed. While Michel’s move is legally kosher, it piles extra pressure on European leaders, as they usually have more time for wheeling and dealing during the great top-job carve up that always comes after the five-yearly EU ballots.

https://www.politico.eu/article/charles-michel-to-run-for-eu-election-2024-top-jobs-viktor-orban/

[Diouf]

My best guess is then an alliance between DPP and New Right, and one between Liberals, Moderates and Social Liberals.

It seems like this Renew electoral alliance is about to be in place. At their new year event today, the Social Liberal leader Martin Lidegaard accidentally said 'our electoral alliance' when looking at Liberal leader Troels Lund Poulsen. And if those two party are allied, it would surprising if Moderates aren't involved as well.

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/politik/2024-01-07-lidegaard-gjorde-salen-helt-stille-talte-han-lige-over-sig

[Mike88]

On the same day António Costa leaves his party's leadership, this happens. Interesting...

[Zinneke]

The European Council President Charles Michel will run as a candidate for the European Parliament.

Michel plans to take up his seat in the European Parliament mid-July if he’s elected, meaning EU leaders will have to agree quickly on a successor for his vacated Council post. If they don’t, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose country will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July, would lead the meetings — a broker-role normally undertaken by the European Council president

It’s the first time a sitting Council president will be a candidate in a European parliamentary election. Michel would normally have stayed on in the job until the end of November, when the new College of Commissioners would be installed. While Michel’s move is legally kosher, it piles extra pressure on European leaders, as they usually have more time for wheeling and dealing during the great top-job carve up that always comes after the five-yearly EU ballots.

https://www.politico.eu/article/charles-michel-to-run-for-eu-election-2024-top-jobs-viktor-orban/

A coward, possibly the best example of the political class's utter decay and neo-aristocratic tendencies, literally got a PM job of a top country due to being Daddy's good little boy and then fell upwards to a position thanks to taking out Macron and wooing him to be his good little puppy. He now wants to parachute himself in the EP despite his reputation in the EU bubble being in tatters, presumably because he looks in envy at the likes of Benoit Lutgen and Marie Arena (lol) and how they grift and posture in a meaningless institution that should be cut by 2/3rds in any next treaty reform.

[jaichind]

[Diouf]

In Denmark, Epinion made a poll for Altinget and DR about the lead candidates for each party. For 9 out of 12 lead candidates, more than half of the population didn't know them. And still the numbers probably overrate the familiarity of the candidates somewhat, since the campaigns are not really starting yet.

Ranked from most to least known, with approval rating added (approve minus disapprove, don't knows discarded)

Morten Løkkegaard, Liberals, 30% unfamiliar, +8 approval
Stine Bosse, Moderates, 37%, +13
Martin Henriksen, New Right, 40%, -25
Henrik Dahl, Liberal Alliance, 51%, -8
Christel Schaldemose, Social Democrats, 53%, +2
Anders Vistisen, DPP, 59%, -10
Per Clausen, Red-Green Alliance, 62%, -4
Niels Flemming Hansen, Conservatives, 74%, -2
Kira Marie Peter Hansen, SPP, 76%, =
Jan Kristoffersen, Alternative, 76%, -4
Kristoffer Storm, Denmark Democrats, 77%, -3
Sigrid Friis, Social Liberals, 77%, -2

It's worth noting that since the poll was conducted, the New Right is no longer eligble to run at the European elections, so one of the most well-known (and the most unpopular) lead candidates is no longer in the field.

One might have an tendency to underrate Morten Løkkegaard, but he was the candidate with the highest personal vote at the 2019 European elections, despite the Liberals also running the very popular Søren Gade on their list. He was a TV host before becoming a politician, and has been a MEP 2009-2014 and 2016-now. And his approvals are quite good as well, so there should be a good chance of him overperforming the party's current woes. The rest of the list is okay with MEP Asger Christensen, ex-MP and Minister Ulla Tørnæs and ex-mayor and MP Carsten Kissmeyer plus some decent young talents. A Renew electoral alliance with Moderates and Social Liberals is expected to be announced soon.

The Moderates look in a strong position with famous and fairly popular lead Stine Bosse, the former business woman and leader of the European Movement. And then with MEP Bergur Løkke Rasmussen, former Conservative leader and minister Lars Barfoed plus MP Karin Liltorp as candidates, they should get a good result.

Henrik Dahl is somewhat known as lead candidate for Liberal Alliance. He belongs to the right wing of the party with quite tough views on immigration, so he is perhaps not gonna challenge as much for the pro-EU liberals as other LA candidates would have done. The rest of the list is filled with unknown people, so the question is whether they can get a very good result even with a below-par list.

Christel Schaldemose has been a MEP for the Social Democrats since 2006, so has plenty of experience with EP politics, but has never been a household name in Denmark. The party's two other MEPs Niels Fuglsang and Marianne Vind are also running again, but are even lesser know. Journalist Magnus Barsøe looks like the only other likely candidate in play for a seat. But it's the strenght of the party which will carry them through.

Anders Vistisen from DPP was a MEP from 2014-2019 and again since November 2022. He is a fairly good campaigner, with New Right currently out of the picture and DPP making slight progress, I would expect him to get fairly close to a seat. But whether they can get all the way to the 5-6% likely to be necessary might be too big of an ask. No-one else worth noting on the list.

Long-time MP Per Clausen should get things done fairly calmly for the Red-Green Alliance. He is the only notable candidate for the party, but with them currently doing quite well and them being the only Eurosceptic left-wing option, I think he should be able to get his seat.

But on the left-wing, Red-Green Alliance might be overshadowed by SPP. Not by their young incumbent MEP and lead candidate Kira Marie Peter Hansen, but by former SPP leader and Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal, who could be a good candidate to top the personal vote charts. The party is also running former MP Rasmus Nordqvist, who was a lead candidate for the Alternative in 2019.

The Conservatives have a completely unknown MP as lead candidate, with the more divisive ex-MP Marcus Knuth relegated to second on the list, and another ex-MP Birgitte Bergman as third. I think the party's strength, three okayish candidates, and not least the electoral alliance with LA will secure them a seat once again.

Alternative will have a very hard time getting a MEP with a list of complete unkowns and polling low.

Denmark Democrats are doing well in national polls, but are running a completely untested candidate here. And so far the party seems to be running on its own, so if they fall below 6% the seat could be in danger.

Ex Social Liberal Youth leader Sigrid Friis impressively fought off three ex-MPs to become the party's lead candidate. With the party not polling very well, she might need to perform another surprise to ensure the party stays represented in the EP.


My current estimates for the 15 seats on electoral alliance.

Red-Green (Social Democrats, SPP, Alternative): They should get at least five seats, and likely six. I think Villy Søvndal could propel SPP high and close to the Social Democrats, but propably not higher than them. So I think the five would go to three Social Democrats and two SPPs. And then if there's a sixth, it could be a quite equal battle between the two. I don't see the Alternative getting close.

Renew (Liberals, Moderates, Social Liberals): They should get at least three seats, and likely four. Both Liberals and Moderates have quite strong line-ups. From the three seats, I think Liberals will get 2 and Moderates 1. A fourth seat could be open between all three parties, perhaps with a second Moderate a bit more likely than a Social Liberals one or a third Liberal.

EPP (Liberal Alliance, Conservatives): They should get three seats, and probably two for Liberal Alliance. Liberal Alliance are doing very well in current national parliament polls, so maybe they will overperform. But I just don't see any of the two parties candidates' being very big assets.

Red-Green Alliance: Likely one seat

Denmark Democrats: Probably one seat if Kristoffer Storm can do ok, and maybe if they shore up their list a bit.

DPP: They are still doing quite poorly in most polls, except YouGov, so it would take something to get a seat. But Messerschmidt is particularly fond of the European question, and Vistisen a decent candidate, so again I think they could get close to a seat.

[jaichind]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anti-eu-populists-poised-to-dominate-in-european-elections-brtrh5hp2

"Anti-EU populists poised to dominate in European elections"