Der (europäische) Föderalist

By Manuel Müller

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
EP2024	46	53	136	77	188	78	84	25	33	–
EP today	45	53	135	78	184	84	85	27	29	–
Aug. 26 (B)	51	40	118	68	175	77	99	45	19	28
Oct. 26 (B)	52	40	120	69	172	78	99	45	18	27
Oct. 26 (D)	57	37	125	70	172	86	102	45	26	–






: Baseline scenario,
as of 5 October 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)







: Dynamic scenario,
as of 5 October 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)

It is a turbulent autumn for European political parties. Regional elections in Germany saw the AfD (ESN) winning in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Die Linke (Left) in Berlin, sending political shockwaves through the German political scene. In the Latvian parliamentary election, the AS (ECR) achieved a surprisingly clear victory and, together with its ECR partner party NA, now holds a narrow majority in the national parliament. In Sweden, the Socialdemokraterna (S&D) won the national election but are facing significant difficulties in forming a government. In Romania, the political crisis that has followed the collapse of the governing coalition between PNL (EPP) and PSD (S&D) in the spring is deepening. In Spain, the government led by Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) has just called early elections for the end of November.

A gentle breeze

But despite all these developments, the political mood in Europe has remained remarkably stable in recent weeks. While the parties of the democratic centre faced strong headwinds over the summer, polls at the beginning of autumn were more like a gentle breeze. Compared to the last seat projection from mid-August, no parliamentary group has experienced significant gains or losses. Even at the national level, the Latvian election campaign was the only event to produce a clear shift in public opinion for or against any particular party in any member state.

Overall, the centre-left bloc has gained slightly – but by so little that it could simply be due to random fluctuation. Taken together, the parties to the left of the European People’s Party remain at one of their lowest levels ever in the seat projection.

EPP falls back

The EPP itself is falling further behind in the current seat projection. In the baseline scenario, it now stands at 172 seats (–⁠3), its worst result in the current legislative term. The large centre-right group is being hit particularly hard by the developments in Romania, where the surge in support that the PNL experienced at the beginning of the current crisis is now waning. Furthermore, the German CDU/CSU has fallen to historic lows following its defeats in the state elections in September. The EPP is also performing slightly worse than in the summer in Italy, Sweden and Ireland.

This is mitigated by modest gains in Belgium and Bulgaria. In addition, the small Romanian EPP member party UDMR would now just about clear the national five percent hurdle.

S&D is recovering only slightly

The centre-left S&D group had fallen to a historic low in the August projection. Since then, it has recovered somewhat, but with 120 seats (+⁠2) it still remains at its second-lowest level ever.

In particular, the Swedish Socialdemokraterna suffered losses in the final stretch of the campaign before the national parliamentary elections in September. Moreover, the year-and-a-half-long decline of the Croatian SDP has continued in recent weeks. The German SPD, on the other hand, has recently gained ground, and the Slovenian SD would now narrowly secure a seat in the European Parliament again.

Netherlands: PRO chooses PES

One party that is currently enjoying particular success in the centre-left camp is the Dutch PRO, which emerged in July from a merger between the social democratic PvdA and the green GL and is leading the national polls by a wide margin. At the end of September, the party held a membership vote on whether to affiliate with the Party of European Socialists (PES) or the European Green Party (EGP) at the European level.

Although PRO’s policy positions are closer to those of the European Greens, an advisory commission appointed by the party leadership recommended joining the PES because it promised greater influence within the European institutions. The party members followed this recommendation by a two-thirds majority.

In the European Parliament, this will initially have no consequences: During the ongoing legislative term, PRO MEPs will remain in their current political groups, split equally between social democrats and Greens. However, from the 2029 European elections onwards, it is expected that all PRO MEPs will join the S&D group. This has been taken into account in the dynamic scenario of the seat projection, which therefore shows a small jump in S&D representation.

RE: Mixed performance

The performance of the centrist-liberal RE group has been rather mixed (69 seats/+⁠1). Its member parties in Belgium, Germany, and Portugal have all recently experienced a slight decline. The two liberal governing parties from the Netherlands, D66 and VVD, are also continuing their downward trend.

By contrast, RE members are now narrowly surpassing the national four percent threshold in the polls in Italy and Sweden. In addition, the Dutch senior citizens’ party 50+ could also regain a seat in the European Parliament. The party last obtained European representation in the 2019 election. Its sole MEP at the time joined the EPP group, before leaving the party a year later. Since 2023, 50+ has been a member of the European Democratic Party (EDP), which is connected to the RE group.

Greens, Left: Mostly unchanged

There are hardly any changes in the Green/EFA group, which elected new group leaders this week (40 seats/±0). While the German and Austrian Grüne have made slight gains, the Portuguese Livre are in a prolonged decline in the polls and would now no longer win a seat in the European Parliament.

Overall, the anticipated loss of the PRO MEPs is a more significant factor for the Greens, as it will reduce the G/EFA group to 37 seats in the dynamic scenario. This is one of their lowest figures since the dynamic scenario was first introduced into the seat projection in July 2018.

The results for the Left group have also remained virtually unchanged (52 seats/+⁠1). While the Swedish Vänsterpartiet and the Belgian PTB have performed slightly better recently than in the summer, the Austrian KPÖ has once again fallen below the national four percent threshold.

ECR: Success in Latvia

The three groups at the far right of the political spectrum – ECR, PfE, and ESN – experienced a decline in the polls during the first half of the year, but gained ground again over the summer. The current projection shows virtually unchanged results for all three of them.

Of the parties in the ECR group, the Latvian governing party AS has the most reason to celebrate. Since its Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs took office in May, the party has surged in the polls and achieved a landslide victory in the national election at the beginning of October. Together with its coalition partner NA, which is also part of the ECR group, AS now holds an absolute majority in the national parliament. This result would give the party four seats in the European Parliament – making it the fourth-largest individual party within the ECR group.

Meanwhile, the Polish PiS is performing somewhat weaker than in the summer, and the Bulgarian DPS would currently no longer be represented in the European Parliament at all. Despite its success in Latvia, the ECR group is therefore only growing slightly, reaching 78 seats (+1) in the seat projection now.

PfE: Gains in Portugal, underperforming in Latvia

Among the member parties of the PfE group, the Portuguese Chega continues to gain ground, now standing almost neck and neck with the socialist PS (S&D) as the strongest national force. In Hungary, former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has managed to slightly improve its poll numbers for the first time since its election defeat in April.

The Latvian LPV, on the other hand, did achieve second place in the national parliamentary elections at the beginning of October, but fell significantly short of polling expectations. Overall, the PfE therefore remains unchanged at 99 seats (±⁠0).

ESN: Maintaining its high level

Within the ESN group, the German AfD has long been pushing the seat projection upwards. However, since the summer, this trend has apparently plateaued, with the party remaining stable at a high level.

Meanwhile, the Italian party FN, which was founded only at the beginning of the year, continues to rise in the polls and is now ranking as the fourth strongest force in the country. Furthermore, the Bulgarian Vāzraždane party would narrowly regain a seat in the European Parliament. In contrast, the Dutch FvD is experiencing slight losses, meaning that the ENS group as a whole remains unchanged at 45 seats (±⁠0).

Non-attached and “other” parties

There has been little change also among the non-attached parties, which fall back to 18 seats (–⁠1) due to slight losses by the far-right KKP from Poland.

Finally, the "other" parties, which are not currently represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to any political group, also suffered minor losses overall (27 seats/–⁠1). The centre-left SD from Ireland and the national-conservative Most from Croatia gained seats, while the left-conservative Bulgarian governing party PB, the Greek anti-corruption party Elpída, and the right-wing populist, pro-Russian SV from Latvia all declined slightly.

The overview

The following table breaks down the projected distribution of seats by individual national parties. The table follows the baseline scenario, in which each national party is attributed to its current parliamentary group (or to the parliamentary group of its European political party) and parties without a clear attribution are labelled as “other”.

In contrast, the dynamic scenario of the seat projection assigns each “other” party to the parliamentary group to which it is politically closest, and also takes into account likely future group changes of parties that are already represented in the Parliament. As a result, the ECR, S&D, and Left groups as well as the group of non-attached parties are currently slightly stronger in the dynamic than in the baseline scenario. In the table, the changes from the baseline to the dynamic scenario are indicated by coloured text and in the mouse-over text. The mouse-over text also lists any alternative groups that the party in question might plausibly join.

In the absence of pan-European election polls, the projection is based on an aggregation of national polls and election results from all member states. The specific data basis for each country is explained in the small print below the table. For more information on European parties and political groups in the European Parliament, click here.

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
EP2024	46	53	136	77	188	78	84	25	33	–
EP today	45	53	135	78	184	84	85	27	29	–
Aug. 26 (B)	51	40	118	68	175	77	99	45	19	28
Oct. 26 (B)	52	40	120	69	172	78	99	45	18	27
Oct. 26 (D)	57	37	125	70	172	86	102	45	26	–
	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
DE	10 Linke 1 Tier	14 Grüne 3 Volt	12 SPD	3 FDP 3 FW 1 PdF	17 Union 1 Familie 1 ÖDP			25 AfD	3 BSW 2 Partei
FR	8 LFI		13 PS	14 RE	12 LR		34 RN
IT	11 M5S 2 SI	3 EV	17 PD	3 IV/+E	5 FI 1 SVP	23 FdI	5 Lega	6 FN
ES	2 Sumar 2 Pod 1 Bildu	2 Sumar 1 ERC	17 PSOE	1 PNV	22 PP		12 Vox		1 SALF
PL			4 Lewica		20 KO	12 PiS 3 R+	4 Konf	5 Konf	5 KKP
RO			9 PSD	2 USR 1 PMP	6 PNL 1 UDMR	14 AUR
NL		3 PRO	4 PRO	4 D66 4 VVD 1 50+	3 CDA		5 PVV	3 FvD		4 JA21
BE	3 PTB	1 Groen	2 Vooruit 3 PS	2 MR 1 LE	2 CD&V 1 CSP	3 N-VA	4 VB
CZ		2 Piráti			4 STAN 1 TOP09	3 ODS	9 ANO	2 SPD
EL			3 PASOK		7 ND	2 EL	1 FL		1 KKE 1 PE	4 ELAS 1 Elpída 1 MéRA
HU					14 TISZA		6 Fidesz	1 MHM
PT			7 PS	1 IL	6 AD		7 Chega
SE	2 V	1 MP	6 S	2 C 1 L	4 M 1 KD	4 SD
AT		3 Grüne	3 SPÖ	1 Neos	5 ÖVP		8 FPÖ
BG				2 PP	3 GERB 2 DB			1 V		9 PB
DK	1 Enhl.	2 SF	4 S	1 V 1 RV 1 M	1 LA 1 K	1 DD	2 DF
SK				4 PS	2 Slov 1 KDH	2 SaS		2 REP	3 Smer 1 Hlas
FI	2 Vas	1 Vihreät	4 SDP	2 Kesk	3 Kok	3 PS
IE	4 SF			4 FF	3 FG					2 SD 1 Aontú
HR		2 Možemo	3 SDP		5 HDZ					2 Most
LT		1 DSVL	2 LSDP	2 LS	3 TS-LKD	1 LVŽS				2 NA
LV		1 PRO			1 JV	4 AS 1 NA	1 LPV			1 SV
SI	1 Levica		1 SD	3 GS	3 SDS 1 N.Si
EE			1 SDE	1 RE 1 KE	2 Isamaa	1 KE	1 EKRE
CY	2 AKEL		1 DIKO		2 DISY	1 ELAM
LU			1 LSAP	2 DP	2 CSV				1 ADR
MT			3 PL		3 PN

Timeline (baseline scenario)

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
26-10-05	52	40	120	69	172	78	99	45	18	27
26-08-17	51	40	118	68	175	77	99	45	19	28
26-06-15	49	40	122	71	181	74	98	39	19	27
26-04-20	52	39	124	70	173	78	103	36	21	24
26-02-23	54	37	124	64	175	83	104	37	24	18
26-01-07	53	37	122	71	177	80	104	38	27	11
25-11-10	51	37	124	71	175	81	105	39	24	13
25-09-01	55	40	123	66	176	85	105	37	21	12
25-07-01	51	44	124	73	181	80	99	36	20	12
25-05-19	49	40	130	76	179	79	100	35	23	9
25-03-24	52	41	131	73	177	79	99	33	24	11
25-01-27	48	43	130	81	185	77	93	29	24	10
24-12-02	43	41	131	83	186	73	100	27	24	12
24-10-07	44	41	136	79	186	74	96	26	29	9
24-08-12	44	45	137	77	191	73	88	25	31	9
EP 2024	46	53	136	77	188	78	84	25	33	–

Timeline (dynamic scenario)

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
26-10-05	57	37	125	70	172	86	102	45	26	–
26-08-17	56	40	119	70	175	84	103	45	28	–
26-06-15	52	40	124	74	181	80	101	39	29	–
26-04-20	53	39	126	72	173	84	106	36	31	–
26-02-23	55	37	126	65	176	90	104	37	30	–
26-01-07	54	37	123	73	177	86	106	38	26	–
25-11-10	52	37	126	73	175	86	109	39	23	–
25-09-01	56	40	125	68	177	89	107	37	21	–
25-07-01	52	44	126	75	181	84	101	37	20	–
25-05-19	49	40	132	78	179	82	101	36	23	–
25-03-24	52	41	132	74	179	82	103	33	24	–
25-01-27	49	43	132	82	185	80	96	29	24	–
24-12-02	43	42	133	82	186	77	104	27	26	–
24-10-07	46	41	137	79	187	77	97	26	30	–
24-08-12	45	46	138	78	191	76	89	25	32	–
EP 2024	46	53	136	77	188	78	84	25	33	–

The “EP 2024” line indicates the distribution of seats as of July 16, 2024, when the European Parliament was constituted following the election in June 2019.
Overviews of older seat projections from previous legislative terms can be found here (2014-2019) and here (2019-2024).

Attribution of national parties to parliamentary groups

Baseline scenario: The projection assigns parties that are already represented in the European Parliament to their current parliamentary group. National parties that are not currently represented in the European Parliament but belong to a European political party, are attributed to the parliamentary group of that party. In cases where the members of a national electoral list are expected to split up and join different political groups after the election, the projection uses the allocation that seems most plausible in each case (see below). Parties for which the allocation to a specific parliamentary group is unclear are classified as “other” in the baseline scenario.

According to the rules of procedure of the European Parliament, at least 23 MEPs from at least a quarter of the member states (i.e. 7 out of 27) are required to form a parliamentary group. Groupings that do not meet these conditions would therefore have to win over additional MEPs in order to be able to constitute themselves as a parliamentary group.

Dynamic scenario: In the dynamic scenario, all “other” parties are assigned to an already existing parliamentary group (or to the group of non-attached members). In addition, the dynamic scenario also takes into account other group changes that appear politically plausible, even if the respective parties have not yet been publicly announced them. To highlight these changes from the baseline scenario, parties that are assigned a different parliamentary group in the dynamic scenario are marked in the colour of that group. Moreover, the name of the group appears in the mouse-over text. Since the attributions in the dynamic scenario are partly based on a subjective assessment of the political orientation and strategy of the parties, they can be quite uncertain in detail. From an overall perspective, however, the dynamic scenario may be closer to the real distribution of seats after the next European election than the baseline scenario.

The full names of the political groups and of the national parties appear as mouse-over text when the mouse pointer is held still over the name in the table. In the case of “other” parties and parties that are likely to change group after the next European elections, the mouse-over text also lists the groups that the party might join. The group to which the party is assigned in the dynamic scenario is listed first.

Data source

If available, the most recent poll of voting intentions for the European Parliament is used to calculate the seat distribution for each country. In case that more than one poll has been published, the average of all polls from the two weeks preceding the most recent poll is calculated, taking into account only the most recent poll from each polling institute. The cut-off date for taking a survey into account is the last day of its fieldwork, if known, otherwise the day of its publication.

For countries where the last specific European election poll was published more than a fortnight ago or where significantly fewer polls for European than for national parliamentary elections were published in the last two weeks, the most recent available poll for the national parliamentary election or the average of all national or European parliamentary polls from the two weeks preceding the most recent available poll is used instead. For countries where there are no recent polls for parliamentary elections, polls for presidential elections may be used instead, if the presidential candidates’ polling figures can plausibly be assigned to their respective parties. (This may concern France and Cyprus in particular). For member states for which no recent polls can be found at all, the results of the last national or European elections are used.

As a rule, the national poll results of the parties are directly projected to the total number of seats in the country. For countries where the election is held in regional constituencies without interregional proportional compensation (currently Belgium and Ireland), regional polling data is used where available. Where this is not the case, the number of seats is calculated for each constituency using the overall national polling data. National electoral thresholds are taken into account in the projection where they exist.

In Belgium, constituencies in the European election correspond to language communities, while polls are usually conducted at the regional level. The projection uses polling data from Wallonia for the French-speaking community and polling data from Flanders for the Dutch-speaking community. For the German-speaking community, it uses the result of the last European election (1 seat for CSP).

In countries where it is common for several parties to run as an electoral alliance on a common list, the projection makes a plausibility assumption about the composition of these lists. In the table, such multi-party lists are usually grouped under the name of the electoral alliance or of its best-known member party. Sometimes, however, the parties of an electoral alliance split up after the election and join different political groups in the European Parliament. In this case, the parties are listed individually and a plausibility assumption is made about the distribution of list places (usually based on the 2024 European election results). This includes the following cases: Spain: Sumar: Sumar (place 1 and 6 on the list), CatComù (2), Compromís (3), IU (4) and Más País (5); Ahora Repúblicas: ERC (1, 4), Bildu (2) and BNG (3); CEUS: PNV (1) and CC (2); Romania: ADU: USR (1-2, 4-5, 7-9), PMP (3) and FD (6); Hungary: DK (1-4, 6, 8), MSZP (5) and PM (7); Slovenia: Levica (1) and Vesna (2). When the election comes closer and the parties announce their candidates, the projection uses the distribution on the actual list instead. In some countries, the exact distribution of seats within an electoral alliance depends on preference votes and/or regional constituency results, so that only a plausible assumption can be made in advance. This concerns the following cases: Italy: AVS: EV (1, 3-4, 6-7 etc) and SI (2, 5, 8 etc); Poland: Konfederacja: NN (1, 3, 5 etc.) and RN (2, 4, 6 etc.). Occasionally, members of a single national party split into several political groups after the election; in such cases, a plausibility assumption (usually based on the status quo) is made about their distribution after the next European election. This currently applies to the following cases: Estonia: KE (split equally between RE and ECR), Netherlands: PRO (split equally between S&D and G/EFA in the baseline scenario, S&D only in the dynamic scenario). In France, some polls combine PS (S&D), EELV (G/EFA), PCF (Left) and sometimes LFI (Left); in these cases, the polling figures are divided between the parties according to the ratio in the last poll in which they were reported separately. In Italy, a special rule allows minority parties to enter the Parliament with only a low number of votes, provided they form an alliance with a larger party. The projection assumes such an alliance between FI and the SVP.

Since there is no electoral threshold for European elections in Germany, parties can win a seat in the European Parliament with less than 1 per cent of the vote. Since German polling institutes do not usually report values for very small parties, the projection includes them based on their results in the last European election (3 seats each for Volt and FW, 2 seats for Partei, 1 seat each for Tierschutzpartei, ÖDP, Familienpartei, and PdF). If a small party achieves a better value in current polls than in the last European election, the poll rating is used instead.

The following overview lists the data source for each member state. The dates refer to the last day of the fieldwork; if this is not known, to the day of publication of the polls:

Germany: national polls, 22/9-5/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
France: national polls, 7-8/10/2025, source: Wikipedia;
Italy: national polls, 22/9-5/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Spain: national polls, 21/9-3/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Poland: national polls, 9-22/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Romania: national polls, 22/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Netherlands: national polls, 28/9-2/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, French community: Wallonian polls for the national parliamentary election, 15/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, Dutch community: Flemish polls for the national parliamentary election, 15/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, German community: results of the European Parliament election, 9/6/2024;
Czechia: national polls, 31/8-12/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Greece: national polls, 15-28/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Hungary: national polls, 18-30/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Portugal: national polls, 14-21/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Sweden: results of the national parliamentary election, 13/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Austria: national polls, 22-23/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Bulgaria: national polls, 29/9-2/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Denmark: national polls, 29/9-4/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Slovakia: national polls, 21-22/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Finland: national polls, 1-14/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Ireland: national polls, 22/9-4/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Croatia: national polls, 22/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Lithuania: national polls, 26/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Latvia: results of the national parliamentary election, 3/10/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Slovenia: national polls, 16-24/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Estonia: national polls, 27/9/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Cyprus: results of the national parliamentary election, 24/5/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Luxembourg: national polls, 24/4/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Malta: results of the national parliamentary election, 30/5/2026, source: Wikipedia.

Manuel Müller is a Helsinki-based EU researcher and the editor of the blog “Der (europäische) Föderalist”. His research focuses on supranational democracy and EU institutional reform.