Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
EP2024 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 33 | – |
EP today | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 86 | 25 | 31 | – |
Oct. 24 (B) | 44 | 41 | 136 | 79 | 186 | 74 | 96 | 26 | 29 | 9 |
Dec. 24 (B) | 43 | 41 | 131 | 83 | 186 | 73 | 100 | 27 | 24 | 12 |
Dec. 24 (D) | 43 | 42 | 133 | 82 | 186 | 77 | 104 | 27 | 26 | – |
- Baseline scenario,
as of 2 December 2024.
(Click to enlarge.)
- Dynamic scenario,
as of 2 December 2024.
(Click to enlarge.)
2024 was – once again – not an easy year for the European Socialists. In the European election in June, the S&D group achieved its worst result ever and lost the option of forming centre-left majorities in the European Parliament without the European People’s Party. At the national level, Socialists lost the Portuguese parliamentary election in March, failed to translate their electoral success in France into government participation in July and saw the collapse of the German traffic-light coalition in November.
Annus horribilis for the S&D
In the Romanian parliamentary election last Sunday, the centre-left PSD maintained its position as the largest party despite massive losses, and in the Irish parliamentary election two days earlier, both the Labour Party and the Social Democrats made slight gains and could be part of the next government. In both cases, however, they fell short of poll expectations.
Looking at the political mood across Europe, European Socialists’ annus horribilis is not yet over: In the last seat projection of the year, the S&D group slips to one of its worst figures ever. In addition to Romania, S&D member parties have recently been in decline in the polls in Germany and Sweden. In the baseline scenario, they would only win 131 seats, five fewer than in the European elections and the last projection in October.
EPP unchallenged in the top spot
In contrast, there has been little change in recent weeks in the EPP, which is increasingly dominating European politics as the largest parliamentary group that is also essential for forming a majority in the Parliament. EPP member parties made slight gains in Germany, Greece and Slovakia. Sweden’s small Christian Democratic KD would now narrowly pass the national four per cent threshold; and in Latvia’s fragmented party system, the JV is once again the strongest force in the polls.
The Spanish PP, on the other hand, suffered slight losses. Following the floods in Valencia, it was criticised both for the delayed reaction of the Valencian regional government and for its attempts to blame the Spanish central government. In addition, the Irish EPP member party FG performed worse than expected in the national elections in November, and the Lithuanian TS-LKD fell back in the polls after an unexpectedly good result in the national elections in October.
In total, the EPP stands at 186 seats (±0 compared to the October forecast). With this, it remains unchallenged in first place, just below its result in the June European elections.
Liberals gain ground
The liberal RE group – the third partner, alongside the EPP and S&D, in the coalition agreement that paved the way for the new EU Commission two weeks ago – made significant gains. Thanks in part to the election victory of FF in Ireland, the Liberals have risen to 83 seats (+4) in the projection. RE member parties also made slight gains in Belgium and Portugal.
But things are not all rosy for the Liberals either: The Slovenian governing party GS has once again lost ground in the polls, and the German FDP has come under heavy criticism since the so-called D-Day affair. If this has not yet had a direct impact on its poll ratings, it is mainly because they were already at a very low level. Add to this the fact that a majority in France (where there are no current party polls) welcomes the fall of the liberal-conservative government, and the European liberals also face a difficult year in 2025.
Greens and Left stagnate
For the European Greens, the last eight weeks have been a mixed bag: In Denmark they have further established themselves as the strongest centre-left opposition party and are now just behind the governing Social Democrats. In Germany, too, the Greens have made some gains in the polls since the end of the traffic-light coalition – after more than two years of almost continuous decline. On the other hand, the Czech Piráti are once again slightly down, and the Belgian Ecolo would not even make it into the European Parliament at this point. Overall, the Greens remain on 41 seats (±0).
There are also few changes in the Left group. In the projection, it benefits from the good performance of SF in the Irish parliamentary elections. In addition, the Slovenian party Levica would now enter the European Parliament again by a narrow margin. On the other hand, the former Greek governing party Syriza is only a shadow of its former self after numerous internal squabbles, and the Dutch animal rights party PvdD would now be excluded from the European Parliament according to the latest polls. All in all, the Left now stands at 43 seats (–1).
Due to the losses of the Socialists and the Left, the centre-left camp as a whole also slips to a new all-time low in the projection. For the first time, the S&D, RE, Greens and Left together would not even make it to 300 seats in Parliament.
PfE reaches 100 seats
At the other end of the political spectrum, the extreme right has once again made gains. In particular, the largest of the three far-right groups, the PfE, continues to rise, reaching the symbolic 100-seat mark for the first time (+4). PfE member parties are making gains in the polls especially in Spain, Czechia and Greece.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s ruling party Fidesz is still in slow decline and, for the first time in a long while, is now in second place in some polls, behind the EPP’s TISZA. And Denmark’s DF, which was one of the strongest right-wing parties in Europe a few years ago, would not win any seats in the Parliament now.
ECR loses, ESN gains slightly
The ECR group suffers slight losses (73 seats/–1). Here, the Romanian AUR slightly outperformed its already strong polls in the national parliamentary elections. However, this was offset by losses for the Latvian NA. In addition, the Croatian DP, junior partner in the Croatian coalition government, would not enter the European Parliament any more according to current polls.
Finally, the smallest far-right group, ESN, saw slight losses in Czechia offset by small gains in Germany and Poland. Overall, the ESN group now stands at 27 seats (+1), the best result in its six-month history. However, only ESN parties from six different member states would currently make it into the Parliament – one too few to re-constitute themselves as an independent group.
All-time high for the far right
Taken together, the three far-right groups would reach 200 seats in the European Parliament for the first time: a new all-time high, but still far from a majority.
However, the far-right camp has become politically influential in the Parliament because, since the European election, the EPP group has been increasingly willing to push through decisions together with the ECR and the PfE. While this so-called “Venezuela majority” is still dependent on the support of the small ESN group in the Parliament, the projection now sees a right-wing alliance of EPP, ECR and PfE very close to a majority, even without the ESN.
Non-attached weaker, new “others” emerging
The non-attached parties are much weaker in the projection than in October. In particular, the German BSW is increasingly in crisis after its successes in the East German state elections in September. The Slovakian governing party SMER and the Spanish right-wing populist SALF have also fallen back in the polls recently. In total, the non-attached parties have only 24 seats (–5) in the projection now.
In contrast, “other” parties – i.e. parties that are not currently represented in the European Parliament and do not belong to a European party, so that they cannot be clearly assigned to a political group – are making gains (12 seats/+3). For example, the populist far-right newcomer party NA from Lithuania continues to rise, and the Hungarian satirical party MKKP would also win a seat in the European Parliament. Other parties new to the table are:
- the Romanian far-right party POT, which supported the surprise first-round winner Călin Georgescu in the national presidential election at the end of November and, against all expectations, entered the national parliament a week later;
- the Greek centre-left party KD, which split from Syriza only this November under the leadership of former party leader Stefanos Kasselakis;
- the Bulgarian right-wing populist party MECh, which entered the national parliament for the first time in the election in late October.
Meanwhile, the right-wing liberal FD from Romania and the small left-wing parties MeRA25 and NA from Greece would not win a seat any more.
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. In addition, the dynamic scenario also takes into account likely future group changes of parties that are already represented in the Parliament. 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 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 86 | 25 | 31 | – |
Oct. 24 (B) | 44 | 41 | 136 | 79 | 186 | 74 | 96 | 26 | 29 | 9 |
Dec. 24 (B) | 43 | 41 | 131 | 83 | 186 | 73 | 100 | 27 | 24 | 12 |
Dec. 24 (D) | 43 | 42 | 133 | 82 | 186 | 77 | 104 | 27 | 26 | – |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
DE |
3 Linke 1 Tier |
11 Grüne 3 Volt |
14 SPD |
4 FDP 3 FW |
30 Union 1 Familie 1 ÖDP |
17 AfD |
5 BSW 2 Partei 1 PdF |
|||
FR | 8 LFI |
4 EELV | 11 PS | 19 RE | 9 LR | 30 RN |
|
|||
IT |
9 M5S 2 SI |
3 EV | 19 PD | 4 IV/+E |
7 FI 1 SVP |
24 FdI | 7 Lega | |||
ES |
2 Sumar 2 Pod 1 Bildu |
2 Sumar 1 ERC |
19 PSOE |
1 PNV |
22 PP | 9 Vox |
1 SALF 1 Junts |
|||
PL | 4 Lewica | 2 PL2050 |
20 KO 2 KP |
18 PiS | 3 Konf | 4 Konf | ||||
RO |
9 PSD |
4 USR 1 PMP |
5 PNL 2 UDMR |
7 AUR | 3 SOS |
2 POT |
||||
NL |
1 SP |
3 GL |
4 PvdA |
5 VVD 3 D66 |
3 CDA 1 BBB |
|
11 PVV |
|
||
BE | 2 PTB |
1 Groen |
2 Vooruit 2 PS |
1 O-VLD 3 MR 2 LE |
2 CD&V 1 CSP |
3 N-VA | 3 VB | |||
CZ | 1 Piráti |
3 STAN 1 TOP09 |
3 ODS |
10 ANO 2 PaM |
1 SPD |
|
||||
EL | 1 Syriza | 4 PASOK | 7 ND | 2 EL | 2 FL |
2 KKE 1 PE 1 NIKI |
1 KD | |||
HU |
1 DK |
|
9 TISZA |
9 Fidesz |
1 MHM |
1 MKKP |
||||
PT |
1 BE |
|
7 PS | 2 IL | 7 AD | 4 Chega | ||||
SE | 2 V | 2 MP | 7 S |
1 C |
4 M 1 KD |
4 SD | ||||
AT | 1 Grüne | 4 SPÖ | 2 Neos | 5 ÖVP | 8 FPÖ |
|
||||
BG | 1 BSP |
2 PP 1 APS 2 DPS-NN |
5 GERB 1 DB |
1 ITN |
3 V | 1 MECh |
||||
DK | 1 Enhl. | 3 SF | 4 S |
2 V |
2 LA 1 K |
2 DD |
|
|||
SK | 4 PS |
1 Slov 1 KDH |
1 SaS
|
1 REP |
4 Smer 3 Hlas |
|||||
FI | 1 Vas | 1 Vihreät | 4 SDP |
2 Kesk |
4 Kok |
3 PS | ||||
IE |
4 SF |
|
|
5 FF |
4 FG | 1 SD | ||||
HR | 2 Možemo | 4 SDP | 5 HDZ |
|
1 Most |
|||||
LT | 1 DSVL | 3 LSDP |
2 LS |
1 TS-LKD |
1 LVŽS |
|
3 NA |
|||
LV | 1 Prog | 1 SDPS |
|
2 JV |
1 NA 1 LRA |
1 LPV |
1 ZZS 1 ST! |
|||
SI |
1 Levica |
|
1 SD | 2 GS |
4 SDS 1 NSi |
|||||
EE | 1 SDE |
2 RE 1 KE |
2 Isamaa | 1 EKRE | ||||||
CY | 1 AKEL |
1 DIKO |
3 DISY | 1 ELAM |
|
|||||
LU | 1 Gréng | 1 LSAP | 1 DP | 2 CSV | 1 ADR | |||||
MT | 3 PL | 3 PN |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
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 | – |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
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.
An overview of older seat projections from previous legislative terms can be found here (2014-2019) and here (2019-2024).
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.
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 Republicas: 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); Netherlands: PvdA (1, 3, 5 etc.) and GL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Czechia: TOP09 (1, 3, 5 etc.) and KDU-ČSL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Hungary: DK (1-4, 6, 8), MSZP (5) and PM (7). 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: TD: PL2050 (1, 3, 5 etc.), KP (2, 4, 6 etc.). In Czechia, some polls combine ODS (ECR), TOP09 and KDU-ČSL (both EPP); in these cases, the value is split according to the values of the most recent polls in which the parties are shown separately. For Poland, the projection assumes that the members of the Konfederacja are equally divided between the ESN and PfE groups. 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, 21/11-2/12/2024, source: Wikipedia.France: results of the first round of the national parliamentary election, 30/6/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Italy: national polls, 25/11-2/12/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Spain: national polls, 22-29/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Poland: national polls, 20-26/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Romania: results of the national parliamentary election, 1/12/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Netherlands: national polls, 23-25/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, Dutch community: polls for the national parliamentary election, 24/11/2024, source: HLN.
Belgium, French community: polls for the national parliamentary election, 24/11/2024, source: HLN.
Belgium, German community: results of the European election, 9/6/2024.
Czechia: national polls, 31/10-12/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Greece: national polls, 13-26/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Hungary: national polls, 19-27/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Portugal: national polls, 19-27/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Sweden: national polls, 10-11/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Austria: national polls, 26/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Bulgaria: results of the national parliamentary election, 27/10/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Denmark: national polls, 24/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Slovakia: national polls, 13-20/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Finland: national polls, 5-15/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Ireland: results of the national parliamentary election, 29/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Croatia: national polls, 20-25/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Lithuania: national polls, 16/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Latvia: national polls, October 2024, source: Wikipedia.
Slovenia: national polls, 16-21/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Estonia: national polls, 17-21/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Cyprus: national polls, October 2024, source: Europe Elects.
Luxembourg: results of the European election, 9/6/2024.
Malta: national polls, 17/11/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Pictures: all graphs: Manuel Müller.