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	–
June 26 (B)	49	40	122	71	181	74	98	39	19	27
Aug. 26 (B)	51	40	118	68	175	77	99	45	19	28
Aug. 26 (D)	56	40	119	70	175	84	103	45	28	–






: Baseline scenario,
as of 17 August 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)







: Dynamic scenario,
as of 17 August 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)

Summer is a difficult time for electoral polling. Many people are on holiday, which makes them difficult to reach and distorts the sample. Consequently, many polling organisations conduct fewer or no surveys at all during this period. This means that small fluctuations carry greater weight when calculating averages, such as those used for these European Parliament election seat projections. In addition, the summer lull can thrust seemingly random issues into the public spotlight, influencing short-term sentiment but having little relevance for long-term political debates.

At least the latter, however, was not the case this summer. Instead, two key events with very clear links to major societal debates have dominated the headlines across Europe in recent weeks. Firstly, heatwaves, wildfires and low water levels have highlighted just how acute the threat of climate change has become. Secondly, the Ceuta crisis has refocused attention on migration issues as well as on the EU’s vulnerability to hybrid attacks.

Heat waves and wildfires

At the same time, there was little new to report on the domestic political scene in most EU member states (apart from a few countries such as Romania, where a national government crisis is rumbling on). This summer therefore provides an interesting case study of how cross-border European events can – or cannot – influence the political mood.

For example, one might expect the Greens, who have long been warning of the consequences of climate change, to gain support in the face of extreme weather events. Politicians from other parties, however, sought to play down this connection. French President Emmanuel Macron (RE/RE), for instance, described the heatwave as an exceptional event that could not have been anticipated. Meanwhile, the spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU/EPP) stated that the government simply could not “change the weather”. Furthermore, a certain societal climate fatigue was reflected in a decline in activist mobilisation.

Ceuta crisis

The events in Ceuta, for their part, could have provided a success story for European social democrats. After all, the Spanish centre-left government led by Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) managed to bring the difficult situation under control within 24 hours.

Alternatively, the many deaths resulting from the crisis, the barely questioned pushbacks and collective expulsions, as well as the brutality of the Moroccan police in preventing a second border storm in mid-August, could also have provided grounds for leftist criticism of the EU’s border-sealing policies.

A far-right propaganda win

In reality, however, a different narrative prevailed in the public debate: Backed by a Russian disinformation campaign, far-right figures such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (FdI/ECR) and Finnish Minister for the Interior Mari Rantanen (PS/ECR) claimed that the Ceuta crisis was endangering the security of the Schengen area.

This was obviously untrue. But rather than standing up to Meloni and Rantanen, centre-right politicians such as EPP leader Manfred Weber (CSU/EPP) joined them in criticising what they see as Spain’s overly permissive migration policy. What is more, even Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S/S&D) demonstratively sided with Meloni, thereby provoking an open row among European social democrats. Consequently, the Ceuta crisis became a symbol of European disunity and a propaganda victory for the far right.

Von der Leyen coalition in decline

And indeed, the far-right bloc has emerged as the biggest winner in the European seat projection in recent weeks. After losing substantial support in the first half of the year, the two large far-right groups, ECR and PfE, have now stabilised. The smallest and most extreme far-right group, the ESN, has even seen a significant increase, reaching a new all-time high.

Meanwhile, the big losers are the centrist groups: the centre-right EPP, the centre-left S&D, and the liberal RE. All three have fallen significantly short of last June’s projection. Together, the so-called “Von der Leyen coalition” would now only secure 361 seats in the seat projection’s baseline scenario – the mathematical minimum required for an absolute majority.

Finally, the Greens experienced hardly any changes over the summer: Despite the heatwave, they failed to gain ground and would now be the smallest group in the European Parliament once again.

EPP: Reversion to the mean

Taking a closer look at the individual groups, the EPP has suffered the greatest losses. In part, this is simply a reversion to the mean: In the June projection, the group had gained an unusually large number of seats due to random fluctuations in the polls, some of which (for example in Hungary or Romania) are now being lost again.

Elsewhere, however, the EPP member parties are actually losing ground. The German CDU/CSU in particular, but also the Dutch CDA and the Polish KO, are now in a weaker position than they were before the summer. In contrast, the small Swedish Christian democratic party KD has made slight gains. All in all, the EPP Group now stands at 175 seats in the baseline scenario of the seat projection (–⁠6 in comparison to June).

S&D: New all-time low

The S&D group also sees a decline in its projected number of seats. Among others, the Spanish PSOE slipped slightly in the polls over the summer – although this did not happen as a result of the Ceuta crisis, but rather in the weeks leading up to it. Meanwhile, in Greece, the S&D member party PASOK is suffering as a result of the success of the emerging left-wing rival party ELAS.

In addition, the Social Democrats experienced modest losses in Poland, Portugal, Austria and Slovenia, while gaining some ground in Romania. In all these cases, however, the fluctuations in the polls are minor and should not be overinterpreted, given the limited polling data available during the summer. Still, the overall result is a bitter blow for the S&D, which the projection now puts at a new all-time low of just 118 seats (–⁠4).

No heat boost for the Greens

The losses suffered by the liberal RE group are primarily attributable to Italy, where the two small liberal parties, Italia Viva and Più Europa, would now fail to clear the national four-percent threshold even if they joined forces. In addition, the Finnish Keskusta party has also seen a slight decline in voter support. Overall, the RE group now holds 68 seats (–⁠3).

The European Greens see only minor changes, if any, across all member states – so far, the polls show no indication that the scorching summer has had any significant impact on the political mood. In any case, the Greens/EFA is the only group of the pro-European centre that did not lose any seats over the summer, remaining at 40 (±⁠0).

The numbers for the Left group are somewhat better. Most notably, Germany’s Die Linke has recently gained ground and is now neck and neck with, or even ahead of, the SPD (S&D) in several polls. In addition, the Austrian KPÖ won the local elections in Graz at the end of June and has since begun to narrowly but consistently clear the national four-percent threshold in country-wide polls. Overall, the Left group now stands at 51 seats (+⁠2) in the seat projection.

ECR makes slight gains – and splits in Poland

On the right of the political spectrum, the ECR group made slight gains (77 seats/+⁠3). While the Czech ODS suffered moderate losses, the Finnish PS and the Slovak SaS both gained ground over the summer. The Latvian AS (a coalition of parties comprising regionalist, eco-conservative and Eurosceptic elements) even shot to the top of the national polls just a few weeks before the parliamentary election in early October. Furthermore, the ECR group has benefited from the accession of the previously non-aligned Bulgarian DPS party.

Meanwhile, the Polish ECR member party PiS split at the end of July, after a group led by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki refused to sign a declaration of loyalty and was expelled from the party. Morawiecki subsequently resigned as ECR party leader and is now planning to turn his group, Rozwój Plus, into an independent national party. However, the MEPs allied with him have remained in the ECR group for the time being – presumably also because all the other far-right groups in the European Parliament already have member parties from Poland.

PfE up slightly, ESN hits a new high

The PfE group also made slight gains over the summer (99 seats/+⁠1). While the Italian Lega continues to lose voters to the new, even more extreme rival party FN (ESN), PfE members from Austria and Portugal are now performing slightly better than before. In Czechia, ANO is gaining ground, while the pro-car party Motoristé, which also belongs to the PfE, has fallen below the national five-percent threshold again.

Even more notable are the gains made by the ESN group. With 45 seats (+6), the smallest and most extreme of the three far-right groups has reached a new high in the seat projection. The German AfD in particular continues to gain ground: With 25 seats, it would now be the second-largest single party in the entire Parliament, surpassed only by the French RN (PfE, 34 seats). The Italian FN is also climbing in the polls once again. Moreover, the seat projection also shows slight gains for ESN member parties in the Netherlands, Czechia and Hungary, but each of these is based on a single poll only and could therefore be due to random fluctuations.

The far right is stabilising

Having previously lost ground in the seat projections since the end of 2025, the far-right camp is now showing signs of stabilisation. This is not solely due to reactions to the Ceuta crisis: In several member states, a slight recovery for far-right parties began already in June or July. However, the fact that there is once again public debate about alleged “uncontrolled migration” is likely to further bolster their position.

Still, due to the lower number of polls in summer, all these observations are subject to a certain degree of uncertainty. Only time will tell whether the downward trend of the far-right camp has truly come to an end or whether it will resume in autumn.

Non-aligned unchanged, “others” increasing slightly

Finally, there have been only minor changes among the non-aligned parties. The Polish far-right, anti-establishment KKP has gained ground here, while the Marxist-Leninist KKE from Greece has lost support. Overall, the non-aligned parties continue to hold 19 seats (±⁠0).

The “other” parties, which are not currently represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to any political group, have once again increased their number of seats in the projection – for the fourth time in a row (29 seats/+⁠2). Among them, the following stand out in particular:

the Greek left-wing party ELAS, led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which is now clearly the strongest national opposition party in the polls,
the Christian right-wing populist and pro-Russian party SV from Latvia, which is currently in second place in the national polls ahead of the parliamentary election in October,
the national-conservative anti-abortion party Aontú from Ireland, which could now win a seat in the European Parliament for the first time.

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 group and 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	–
June 26 (B)	49	40	122	71	181	74	98	39	19	27
Aug. 26 (B)	51	40	118	68	175	77	99	45	19	28
Aug. 26 (D)	56	40	119	70	175	84	103	45	28	–
	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
DE	10 Linke 1 Tier	13 Grüne 3 Volt	11 SPD	4 FDP 3 FW 1 PdF	18 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	4 EV	18 PD		6 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		19 KO	13 PiS 3 R+	4 Konf	4 Konf	6 KKP
RO			9 PSD	2 USR 1 PMP	8 PNL	13 AUR
NL		3 PRO	3 PRO	5 D66 4 VVD	3 CDA		5 PVV	4 FvD		4 JA21
BE	2 PTB	1 Groen	2 Vooruit 3 PS	1 Anders 2 MR 2 LE	1 CD&V 1 CSP	3 N-VA	4 VB
CZ		2 Piráti			4 STAN 1 TOP09	3 ODS	9 ANO	2 SPD
EL			2 PASOK		7 ND	2 EL	1 FL		1 KKE 1 PE	4 ELAS 2 Elpída 1 MéRA
HU					14 TISZA		5 Fidesz	2 MHM
PT		1 Livre	6 PS	2 IL	6 AD		6 Chega
SE	1 V	1 MP	7 S	2 C	4 M 2 KD	4 SD
AT	1 KPÖ	2 Grüne	3 SPÖ	1 Neos	4 ÖVP		9 FPÖ
BG				2 PP	3 GERB 1 DB	1 DPS				10 PB
DK	1 Enhl.	2 SF	4 S	1 V 1 RV 1 M	1 LA 1 K	1 DD	2 DF
SK				3 PS	2 Slov 1 KDH 1 D	2 SaS		2 REP	3 Smer 1 Hlas
FI	2 Vas	1 Vihreät	4 SDP	2 Kesk	3 Kok	3 PS
IE	4 SF			3 FF 1 II	4 FG					1 SD 1 Aontú
HR		2 Možemo	4 SDP		5 HDZ					1 Most
LT		1 DSVL	2 LSDP	2 LS 1 LP	3 TS-LKD	1 LVŽS				2 NA
LV		1 Prog			1 JV	2 AS 1 NA	2 LPV			2 SV
SI	1 Levica			3 GS	4 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
26-08-17	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
26-08-17	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, with the presidential candidates’ polling figures assigned to their respective parties (this concerns 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: SI (1, 3) and EV (2, 4); 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 PRO from the Netherlands and KE from Estonia. 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, 2-10/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
France: national polls, 7-8/10/2025, source: Wikipedia;
Italy: national polls, 23/7-5/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Spain: national polls, 4-7/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Poland: national polls, 2-12/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Romania: national polls, 24/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Netherlands: national polls, 1/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, French community: Wallonian polls for the national parliamentary election, 9/6/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, Dutch community: Flemish polls for the national parliamentary election, 9/6/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Belgium, German community: European election results, 9/6/2024;
Czechia: national polls, 31/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Greece: national polls, 20-23/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Hungary: national polls, 11/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Portugal: national polls, 14-27/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Sweden: national polls, 10/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Austria: national polls, 7-17/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Bulgaria: national polls, 23/7-4/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Denmark: national polls, 9-12/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Slovakia: national polls, 10/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Finland: national polls, 3/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Ireland: national polls, 31/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Croatia: national polls, 31/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Lithuania: national polls, 28/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Latvia: national polls, 15/7/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Slovenia: national polls, 6/8/2026, source: Wikipedia;
Estonia: national polls, 13/7/2026, 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.