Who won, who lost and who screwed up in the EU
election
The far right had a good night. Others not so much.
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally victory was
the big story of the night after its strong performance impelled Macron to
dissolve parliament and call a new election. |
JUNE 10,
2024 5:12 AM CET
BY EDDY WAX
BRUSSELS —
One thing is certain after Sunday’s European Parliament election: Not everybody
will be celebrating.
While the
right gained in strength, greens and liberals had a rough night. French
President Emmanuel Macron took such a beating he immediately dissolved the
national parliament and called a new election.
Here’s
POLITICO’s guide to who will be bouncing out of bed and who will be waking up
to a living nightmare.
Winners
Ursula von der Leyen
The
European Commission president emerged from Sunday’s vote with a possible
coalition of Socialists, liberals and her own center-right European People’s
Party (EPP). Together, these three groups — which supported her during her
current term — are expected to have some 407 votes in the chamber.
Though she
only needs 361 votes in Parliament to secure a second mandate, the possibility
of defections means her victory is not yet a done deal. She will also need the
support of the European Union’s national leaders in the European Council.
Still, the
EPP is well-positioned to push her through. Manfred Weber, the leader of the
EPP, called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and France’s Macron to support von
der Leyen for five more years. The EPP won in Germany, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria,
Slovenia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Croatia and
Greece. They also picked up six seats in the Netherlands, outperforming
expectations.
Giorgia Meloni
The Italian
right-wing leader won the election in Italy, emerging well ahead of her rivals.
That makes her, along with Poland’s Donald Tusk, one of the few leaders of a
large EU country to romp home with a victory. She appears to have improved on
her share of the vote compared to the 2022 election.
The far right
Marine Le
Pen’s far-right National Rally victory was the big story of the night after its
strong performance impelled Macron to dissolve parliament and call a new
election. Far-right parties also came first in Austria, tied for first place in
the Netherlands and came in second in Germany and Romania. French firebrand
Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest also scraped into Parliament.
Socialists
Well,
kinda. While they didn’t exactly dazzle, Europe’s center-left parties held the
line, coming in second in big countries like Spain and Italy and in a close
third in France, where Raphaël Glucksmann appears to have resurrected the
center-left. Don’t mention Germany, though, where Scholz’s Socialists came in a
sad third, behind the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Péter Magyar
An
ally-turned-rival of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Magyar has emerged
as the undisputed face of Hungary’s opposition, winning some 30 percent of the
vote after throwing his hat into the ring earlier this year.
Roberta Metsola
The Maltese
president of the European Parliament got her party an extra seat, having racked
up over 87,000 first preferences. Maltese media reported she became the
country’s most voted MEP candidate since the country joined the EU.
Losers
Emmanuel Macron
The French
president was dealt a blow after his party came in a distant second, barely
ahead of the Socialists he was once thought to have consigned to the political
graveyard. His lead candidate Valérie Hayer will limp back to Brussels after
having been repeatedly upstaged by her male allies, not least by Prime Minister
Gabriel Attal. According to a senior official from her Renew party, Attal even
barred her from getting on the train from Paris to Brussels on Sunday night.
Olaf Scholz
The German
Chancellor’s Social Democrats got crushed by the center-right Christian
Democrats and the far-right Alternative for Germany. With just 14 percent of
the vote, the SPD received its worst result in a national election in more than
a century. Scholz is facing calls from the center-right to do a Macron and call
an early election.
Greens
After a
strong performance in 2019, the Greens took a thumping in Germany, slipping
from 21 seats to perhaps as few as 12, barely clung on in France and got zero
in Portugal. Overall they lost some 20 seats in a bleak night for the climate
campaigners. Putting on a brave face, one of the party’s lead candidates, Dutch
MEP Bas Eickhout, said the Greens will seek to play a “constructive” role in
coalition talks — that is, if von der Leyen is interested in talking to them.
Viktor Orbán
The
Hungarian nationalist leader did worse than expected, after facing a fierce
challenge from Magyar. While his Fidesz party took 43.8 percent of the vote, it
was its worst-ever result in a European Parliament election. Still, Brussels
will be watching whether he manuevers his MEPs into the nationalist European
Conservatives and Reformists group, giving another boost to Meloni.
Matteo Salvini
The Italian
deputy prime minister’s League party, which received 34 percent of the vote in
2019 and currently presides over the far-right Identity and Democracy group,
received less than 9 percent this time around, putting it on par with Forza
Italia (which ran with the late Silvio Berlusconi’s name on the ballot). Ciao
to them.
The European Parliament
They had
one job and they cocked it up. A hiccup on stage by a Parliament spokesperson
embarrassed the institution on its biggest night, when he read out different
projected results to those being shown on the screen behind him. It prompted
jeers from the journalists present with one shouting in pantomime style: “It’s
behind you!”
Elisa Braün contributed reporting.
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