The ultra victory in Italy, Hungary or France: x-ray of the rise of the extreme right in the EU
With the exception of the Nordic countries, where the greens and social democracy have gained ground, the reactionary wave is expanding throughout the continent.
10 June, 2024 04:33The advance of the extreme right has shaken the foundations of the European Union this Sunday, but also those of its member states. The French president, Emmanuel Macron , called legislative elections the same night that the results of the European elections were known. "I want to give you the opportunity to choose again," said a president devastated by the overwhelming victory of the far-right National Group in his message to citizens.
Although the centrist, liberal and socialist parties were to maintain the majority in the 720 seats of the European Parliament, the vote dealt a collective blow to the bloc, and especially to its main powers: like Macron, Sunday's results also made the German chancellor , Olaf Scholz , rethink how to direct an increasingly radicalized continent from his moderate governments. A shift to the right within the European Parliament could make it difficult to pass new legislation needed to respond to security challenges, the impact of climate change or industrial competition from China and the United States.
For their part, the Italian leader Giorgia Meloni and the Hungarian president Viktor Orbán had reasons to celebrate on Sunday night. In addition to seeing their popularity strengthened in their respective countries, they witnessed the rise of related movements across the continent, from the French National Rally to the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Despite the promise of a change of course in the new EU, the European People's Party will remain the largest group in the European Parliament, and its president Ursula von der Leyen will once again run for a second term at the head of the Commission. To do this, it will be essential to play your cards well with the extreme right, yes, but also with the greens, the liberals and other political forces. EL ESPAÑOL summarizes the results of the 2024 European elections, country by country , with the purpose of illustrating what balances of power this Sunday's elections leave in each Member State.
Germany
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has overcome a series of scandals and has taken second place in Sunday's European elections, winning mainly among young people, while Chancellor Olaf Scholz 's Social Democrats have obtained the worst result of its history.
The eurosceptic party obtained a record 15.9% of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll published by the state broadcaster ARD. This is 5.2 percentage points more than in the last European elections in 2019 and more than the three parties in Scholz's coalition.
The strong rise of the AfD comes at a time when Germany's party landscape is undergoing its greatest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties competing to occupy the space left by the increasingly smaller mainstream parties. have dominated since reunification in 1990.
AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla react to the results after the polls close.
Austria
The far right has also won the elections to the European Parliament in Austria. The Freedom Party has pledged to carry the momentum of its first European election victory into a national vote for parliament this September.
The far-right group obtained 25.5% of the votes, ahead of the conservative Popular Party (OVP), with 24.7%, and the Social Democrats , with 23.3%. Although the victory of the Party for Freedom is less than had been predicted: until Sunday, polls gave the radicals an advantage of 3.5 percentage points over the OVP.
The Freedom Party's candidate for the European elections, Harald Vilimsky, celebrates the results in Vienna.
Belgium
The European elections in Belgium have coincided with the federal and regional elections. The Flemish nationalist party N-VA (New Flemish Alliance) will remain the leading political force in the Belgian Parliament, after having stopped the rise of the far-right party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest).
However, Vlaams Belang has been the party that has grown the most compared to the previous elections, both in the general elections and in the European elections. The far-right group, which has policies against immigration and wants to divide Belgium, has won three of the 22 seats that correspond to the country in the European Parliament.
Bart De Wever, leader of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, celebrates the election results.
At the same level are the N-VA and the French-speaking Walloon Reform Movement party. With two seats are the Socialist Party, the Socialist-Different Party and the Christian-Democratic and Flemish Party. The Greens, the Ecologists, the French-speaking Labor Party and the Dutch-speaking Labor Party have also obtained parliamentary representation, among other parties.
Bulgaria
In the Balkan country, the European elections have also coincided with the legislative elections, in which the center-right populists GERB won between 26% and 28% of the votes, ahead of the pro-European and reformist PP-BD coalition, with almost 16%. %.
The results for the European Parliament are very similar, although these elections have had very low electoral participation – no more than 31% of Bulgarians. The GERB will have six MEPs, the PP-BD and the DPS of the Turkish minority three. The ultranationalists of Resurrección will have two or three parliamentarians, and the socialists two. It is not clear whether the anti-establishment populist party ITN will manage to send a member of parliament to the European Parliament.
Cyprus
The conservative DISY party managed to prevail on the Mediterranean island with between 22.7% and 25.3% of the votes, closely followed by the communists, who obtained between 21.7% and 24.3%. The big surprise of election day was the independent candidate Fidias Panayiotou , a 25-year-old YouTuber who received between 15.8% and 18.2% of the votes. With these results, Panayiotou has managed to occupy one of the six seats to which Cyprus is entitled in Brussels.
Fidias Panayiotou celebrates his election in the European Championships, this Sunday in Nicosia.
Croatia
The conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), led by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, won with 34.6% of the votes and will have 6 seats in the European Parliament. Second place went to the social democrats of the SDP, to whom 25.96% of support leaves four MEPs. The far-right DP, partner of the coalition in power, with 8.8% and the leftist Mozemo! (with 5.9%) will enter the European Parliament for the first time with one MEP each. However, electoral participation has been extremely low and stood at just 21.34%.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic casts his vote in the ballot box on Sunday in Zagreb.
Denmark
The Popular Socialist Party became the party with the most votes with 17.4% of the votes, 4.2 percentage points more than in 2019. The Social Democrats, in power, lost 5.9 percentage points and obtained 15.6 percent of the votes.
Denmark was shaken on Friday by an attack against Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen , when a man hit her in a square in Copenhagen. Frederiksen did not attend any event on election night.
Attendees react to the exit poll during a People's Socialist Party election party in Copenhagen.
Slovakia
In Slovakia, schools opened on Saturday morning and remained open until 8:00 p.m. the same day. The liberal opposition party Progressive Slovakia (PS), led by former vice president of the European Parliament Michal Simecka, won with 27.8%. It is followed by the ruling social democratic party Smer, led by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico , which suffered an attack in mid-May from which it is still recovering .
Contrary to what some analysts predicted, the attack did not give Fico's party more votes to avoid a defeat against the PS. The ultranationalist Republika also entered the European Parliament, with 12.5% of the votes, the social democratic ruler La Voz (Hlas) , with 7.2%, and the Christian Democrats of the KDH , with 7.1% of support. Voter turnout was 34.4%, compared to 22.7% five years ago.
Slovenia
The conservative opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) won with almost 32% of the vote, ahead of the ruling liberal GS party, which received 21.7% of the support. With this result, the SDS obtains 4 MEPs, compared to two for the GS, led by Prime Minister Robert Golob .
After the scrutiny of 61.5% of the ballots, the environmentalist Vesna party won 10%, the social democratic SD , 7.5%; and the Christian Democrats of the NSi , 7.90%. This is enough for each party to have one MEP. As in Slovakia, voter turnout increased, and turnout was 31.95% (almost three percentage points higher than in the 2019 European elections).
Estonia
In Estonia, former Prime Minister Juri Ratas and MEP Riho Terras will go to the European Parliament for Isamaa, a conservative party that has obtained 21.5% of the votes. Another two seats go to the Social Democrats, who received 19.3% of the votes. Electoral participation in the Baltic country has been 37.7%.
Finland
The big surprise of the night was the socialist Left Alliance , which obtained 17.3% of the votes, which represents an increase of 10.4 percentage points compared to the 2019 elections. With this result, the party secures three of Finland's 15 seats in the European Parliament, more than it won in the previous elections.
The National Coalition Party , led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, remained the most voted, with 24.8%, giving it four seats . The far-right Finnish Party, which is part of the Orpo coalition government, saw its support fall drastically: it only obtained 7.6% of the vote, 6.2 percentage points less, which leaves it with only one seat instead of two.
Election candidate Li Andersson, president of the Left Alliance party, celebrates the results in Helsinki.
France
This Sunday's elections have turned France into the fiefdom of the European extreme right. So much so that the success of the National Rally of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen has forced President Emmanuel Macron to call legislative elections . The far-right party has obtained 31.5% of the votes, more than double that of Macron's Renaissance (14.5%).
One point behind the liberals who govern the country are the socialists of Raise Europe , who have obtained 14%. Although they have closed the gap with Renacimiento, the center-left of Raphaël Glucksmann and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal hoped to surpass the liberals in these European elections.
The left-wing France Insoumise party, led by Manon Aubry , has obtained 10.1% of the vote, approximately 2.5 percentage points more than in 2019. This gives Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party four more seats. The conservative party Los Republicanos , for its part, loses one seat and is left with six after receiving 7.2% of the votes.
Just above the electoral threshold of 5% are the environmentalists (5.5%) and the far-right Reconquista movement (5.3%), led by Éric Zemmour and with Marion Maréchal, Le Pen's niece, as a candidate.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, and Marine Le Pen.
Greece
The ruling conservatives of New Democracy (ND) won with 27.9% of the votes, well below expectations and also far from the 41% obtained in the 2023 general elections. "I am not going to hide the truth. Our formation is not reached the objective we had set for ourselves," said the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis , after knowing the results, although he stressed that the "unprecedented" abstention, almost 60%, makes it difficult to "draw conclusions" from these elections.
Despite ND's loss of support, the main opposition party, the leftist Syriza , was also weakened, with 15% of the votes (4 seats), nine percentage points less than in 2019. The socialists followed closely behind. of Pasok-Kinal (13% and 3 seats), the far-right Greek Solution (9.5% and 2 seats), which doubled its support compared to the 2019 European elections, and the Communist Party of Greece (9.3% and 2 seats).
Representation in the European Parliament was also achieved by the far-right Niki (4.5%), the leftist Freedom Course (3.5%) and the also far-right Voice of Reason , which exceeded the 3% threshold by half a percentage point.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis leaves the stage after analyzing the first results of the elections.
Hungary
Fidesz, the party of far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán , won with 43% of the votes, nine percentage points less than in 2019, while his new political rival, the conservative Péter Magyar , achieved 31% with his Tisza party. the supports. The third force was the progressive and green coalition, with 8% of the votes, while the extreme right of Nuestra Patria took 6%.
The results mean a major defeat for Hungary's liberal and progressive opposition , but also a wake-up call for Orbán's Fidesz, which had won the previous European elections with 52% of the votes. These data indicate that Fidesz would take 11 seats of the 21 in Hungary, Tisza with 7, the progressives with 2 and the extreme right with one.
Magyar appeared 4 months ago in Hungarian political life as a dissident of the Orbán regime whom he accuses of corruption, as well as the opposition of being part of the system. According to Magyar himself, Tisza's MEPs will ask to join the European People's Party (EPP), to which Fidesz previously belonged, until it was forced to leave in 2021. This Sunday's results indicate that more than 80% of the population in Hungary voted for conservative or far-right parties.
Péter Magyar, former member of the government and leader of the Tisza party, uncorks a bottle of champagne in Budapest.
Ireland
The Irish elected their 14 MEPs on Friday, the day the island country also held its local elections. Unlike the European elections in 2019, among the candidates this time there were xenophobic and extreme right-wing voices in response to the rise in immigration after the war in Ukraine and other international conflicts, which have worsened the serious housing crisis that Ireland and They have also put pressure on public services.
The big loser of this turn is the leftist Sinn Féin , the main opposition party and which the polls placed in the lead until just six months ago with more than 30% support but which is now around 17%. The formations that make up the central government, a coalition between Christian Democrats, centrists and Greens, are also behind the independent bloc, but have gained ground after toughening their immigration policy. The Fine Gael of the prime minister, the conservative Simon Harris , receives around 18% of votes, while the environmentalists stand at 7% and the centrist Fianna Fáil falls to 17% in the European elections.
Italy
Italians were able to vote from Saturday until 11:00 p.m. on Sunday. Italy, the third most populous country in the European Union, has 76 deputies in a European Chamber of 720. The vote is preferential and each voter can choose up to three candidates. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni 's ultra-conservative group Fratelli d'Italia has won the most votes in the European Parliament elections held this weekend, reinforcing its position both inside and outside the country .
Meloni's group obtained 28.6% of support , more than four times what it obtained in the last EU elections in 2019, and exceeding the 26% it obtained in the 2022 national votes, when it came to power. These results will give the Fratelli d'Italia 24 seats . "Thank you!" Meloni said on his X social network account, above a photograph in which he appeared showing the victory symbol.
GRAZIE! 🇮🇹 @FratellidItalia si conferma primo partito Italiano, surpassing the results of the scorse political elezioni. pic.twitter.com/uYHHm4Nm6S
— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) June 9, 2024
The center-left opposition Democratic Party came second with 25.6%, while the opposition 5-Star Movement came third with 9.7%, its worst result nationally since its creation in 2009. The biggest setback goes to Matteo Salvini 's Lega : with 8.8% of the votes, the far-right party loses 14 seats in the European Parliament (the same number of seats that Meloni's party wins).
Latvia
In Latvia, the centrist-liberal New Unity (JV) party won 25.7% of the vote. According to the preliminary results of the Latvian Central Electoral Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, current European Commissioner for Trade, was re-elected MEP for JV. The second force in Latvia, with 22.08%, is the National Alliance (NA), with a nationalist-conservative tendency, which will once again send veteran MEP Roberts Zile and MEP Rihards Kols to the EP.
Lithuania
In Lithuania, the conservative Lithuanian Christian Democratic Homeland Union (TS-LKD) achieved 20.92% of the vote. The TS-LKD will send former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius , former Defense Minister Rasa Juknevičienė and MP Paulius Saudargas to the European Parliament. The Social Democrats came second and will send two MEPs to Brussels.
Luxembourg
Prime Minister Luc Frieden's Christian Social People's Party retained its two seats. Instead, its government partner, Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel's (liberal) Democratic Party , lost one seat to the Eurosceptic populists of the ADR , the Reform Party for a Democratic Alternative. The Social Democrats retained their seats, as did the Greens. Now there will be a duel between two candidates for the position of European commissioner : the socialist Nicolas Schmit, leader of the Party of European Socialists, and Christophe Hansen, favorite of the conservative-liberal government.
malt
The vote in this island country of half a million people was peculiar: it took place on Saturday and those over 16 years of age could participate. The president of the European Parliament and nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola obtained a record 81,130 votes. The Labor MEP Alex Agius Saliba obtained 58,316 votes, and the independent candidate Arnold Cassola, with 12,884 votes, was the third most voted.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, votes for the EU elections in Sliema, Malta.
Netherlands
The first country to vote recorded a turnout of 47% on Thursday, the highest since 1989. Exit polls predicted a victory for Geert Wilders ' far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), which in 2019 had not achieved parliamentary representation in Brussels. However, Wilders' ultras received less support than expected: with 17.7% of the votes , they will barely be able to occupy six of the 31 Dutch seats in the European Parliament.
In the lead is the left-wing coalition GroenLinks-PvdA , made up of Greens and Socialists, which with 21.6% of the votes obtains nine seats in the European Parliament. The far-right Forum for Democracy (FvD) loses its four seats and is left without representation in the European Parliament after years of criticism for the conspiracy theories of its leader, Thierry Baudet.
Poland
Prime Minister Donald Tusk 's victory on Sunday cemented his Civic Coalition (KO) as the dominant force in the country after a campaign dominated by security concerns. With the war in Ukraine and the migrant crisis on the border with Belarus, Tusk presented the vote in Poland as a choice between a safe future in a country located at the heart of the European Union or a more dangerous one if the nationalist Law and Justice party won. Justice (PiS), known for its conflicts with Brussels.
This campaign earned Tusk 37.4% of the vote, ahead of PiS's 35.7% . KO's partners in the pro-European coalition government that took power in December, the center-right Third Way and the Left , won 7.3% and 6.6% respectively. The far-right Confederation party obtained 11.9% of support. The results in Poland mark the end of a ten-year streak in which PiS has won first place in elections.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk gives the victory sign in Warsaw on Sunday.
Portugal
The Socialist Party (PS) won with 32.09% of the votes and eight seats, against the center-right coalition Democratic Alliance (AD), of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, which obtained 31.12% of the votes and 7 MEPs. In third position is the far-right party Chega , with 9.79% and two deputies, followed by the Liberal Initiative (IL), with 9.07% and two seats. It is the first time that these last two forces enter the European Parliament.
Czech Republic
In the Central European country, which this year celebrates its twentieth anniversary as a member of the EU, the elections were held on Friday and Saturday. The populist formation Alliance of Dissatisfied Citizens ( Ano 2011 ), of former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, a member of the European liberal family, won with 26.1% of the votes and seven seats , one more than the centrist government coalition SPOLU ( 22.3%), formed by three parties, two members of the European People's Party and one in the group of European Conservatives and Reformists. Four other parties would also win between two and three seats, with around 10% of the votes: the liberal Mayors' Movement and the Pirate Party, both in the Government, as well as the ultranationalist SPD and the communist KSCM.
Romania
The ruling coalition of left-wing social democrats (PSD) and center-right liberals (PNL) obtained 53% of the votes in the European Parliament elections, in which they ran on joint lists. This gives them 21 of the 33 Romanian seats in Brussels. In second position, with 15% of votes and six seats, emerged AUR , a far-right group founded five years ago that opposes immigration and military aid to Ukraine.
Sweden
The anti-immigration Swedish Democrats party, which supports Ulf Kristersson's government, was expected to gain votes and overtake Kristersson's Moderate Party to become the second most voted party, as happened in the 2022 general election. Instead, the The party ended up losing ground for the first time in an election in the party's history. He obtained 13.2% of the vote , 2.1 percentage points less than in the 2019 elections, and only three of the 21 seats.
Green Party secretary Katrin Wissing celebrates the results with party colleagues in Stockholm.
Just as the extreme right has fallen to the fourth political force, Sunday's elections were led by the Social Democrats (S), with 24.9% of the votes and five seats, followed by the Moderates (M), with 17.5%. of supports and four seats in the European Parliament. The Green Party emerged as the third force in the country with 13.8% of the votes, which represents an increase of 2.3 percentage points compared to the 2019 elections, and gives them three seats. The Left Party also experienced an increase of 4.2 percentage points, reaching 10.9% support and two seats.
