Closing summary
It’s 3.45am in Brussels, where EU lawmaking is set to get more complicated, after parties on the populist right made huge gains in the European elections on Sunday, while the pro-European centre also appeared to have held.
We’re closing our live coverage for now, but will be back soon with reactions across the continent to these seismic results.
Despite gains for the far and radical right on Sunday, the mainstream, pro-European parties were on course to hold their majority in the EU parliament. The centre-right European People’s party (EPP), which also topped the polls in Spain and Poland, won the largest number of seats, boosting the chances of its lead candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, to secure a second term as European Commission president. “There remains a majority in the centre for a strong Europe and that is crucial for stability. In other words the centre is holding,” von der Leyen said. The extremes on the left and right had gained support, she said, which put “great responsibility on the parties in the centre”.
Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group, albeit far weaker than the 1990s, when it led many more governments. The EPP, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and the Greens were on course for 462 of the 720 seats, a 64.1% share, compared with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament, according to a projection based on final and provisional results late on Sunday.
In France, Emmanuel Macron called snap legislative elections after a crushing defeat of his allies by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally. The RN won about 32% of French votes, more than double the 15% or so scored by Macron’s allies, according to projections, with the Socialists just behind on about 14%. “I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron said. “I have decided to give you the choice.”
Olaf Scholz’s coalition had a bad night in Germany, as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made significant gains. The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, now in opposition, took a decisive lead, with 30.9% of the vote, according to provisional results. The AfD jumped to 14.2% from 11% in 2019, despite a slew of scandals, including its lead candidate saying that the SS, the Nazi’s main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.
Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s thanked voters after exit polls showed her hard-right Brothers of Italy party winning 26%-30% of the vote, comfortably ahead of its centre-left rivals on 21%-25%.
The Nordic countries bucked the overall trend in the EU elections, with left-wing and green parties making gains, official results showed, while far-right parties saw their support diminish. Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result – with all votes counted.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he heard voters’ “message” and will seek to address their concerns ahead of national elections later this year, including cracking down on “illegal migration”. Nehammer was speaking after close-to-final results showed that far-right party FPOe had come first in EU elections with 25.7% of the vote, just ahead of his ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP) which stood at 24.7%.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right party was second behind a Left-Green alliance, but appeared to have fallen short of expectations. The Freedom party took 17% of the vote, while the Left-Green alliance, led by the former EU Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, was on 21.1%.
The Fidesz party of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán received the most votes, but its performance was its worse in years. With 84.36% of votes counted, the ruling party was at 44.17%, while Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party was at 30.09%. Magyar called the election the Fidesz government’s Waterloo and “the beginning of the end”.
Denmark's leftwing Socialist People’s Party (SF) see surprising surge
Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result – with all votes counted.
The ruling Social Democrats lost 5.9 percentage points, winning 15.6% of the votes.
Prime minister Mette Frederiksen said that SF was the party closest to the Social Democrats politically and that she was happy to see left-wing parties gaining ground.
“In large parts of Europe, the right-wing has made significant progress. Here we stand out in Denmark,” she said in a post on Instagram.
