European Parliament seat projection (July 2023): How far will the new Parliament shift to the right?

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By Manuel Müller

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	ID	NI	other
EP today	37	72	143	101	177	66	62	47	–
May 23	49	50	137	92	162	79	67	33	36
July 23	41	48	136	94	160	79	70	36	41
dynamic	43	52	137	99	167	89	87	31	–

Baseline scenario,
as of 17/07/2023.

Dynamic scenario,
as of 17/07/2023.

In more and more EU member states, right-wing parties participate in government – now also in Finland since the end of June, and soon possibly in Spain after the national parliamentary elections next Sunday. In France, the ongoing riots are keeping the public on edge and shifting the debate to the right. In Germany, the AfD (ID) is on the rise. And at the European level, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is working on a rapprochement with the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). Recently, this alliance was unsuccessful in blocking the EU renaturation law. But with a view to the European elections in 2024, the question of how far the majority in the European Parliament will shift to the right is more urgent than ever.

EPP and S&D almost unchanged

Looking only at the two largest groups – the EPP and the social-democratic S&D – the picture is almost unchanged compared to the last seat projection from May. At least for the time being, the EPP has not benefited in the polls from the polarisation it has brought about, but rather has lost support in Germany, France and Romania. Only in Spain, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s PP has recently been successful with an aggressive electoral campaign. Overall, the EPP falls slightly to 160 projected seats (–⁠2 compared to May).

However, the second-placed S&D has hardly been able to close the gap with the EPP. The Social Democrats have gained slightly in the French and Dutch polls, and in Spain they also benefited from the increased polarisation of the election campaign. The Romanian and Slovakian S&D member parties, on the other hand, have recently suffered setbacks. Overall, the group would now have a total of 136 seats (–⁠1). The race for first place is thus far from decided, even if the EPP remains the favourite to win the European elections in 2024.

Mixed news for the Liberals

For the liberal Renew Europe (RE) group, the last few weeks have been a mixed bag. The Liberals received more bad news from France, where Emmanuel Macron's governing alliance Ensemble has not been able to get out of the domestic political crises for months, as pension reform protests were followed almost seamlessly by riots against police brutality. Also in Austria and Estonia, RE members suffered in the polls recently; and the Spanish party Ciudadanos won’t even run in the national elections on Sunday.

In Italy, on the other hand, the otherwise deeply divided liberal parties agreed at the end of May to seek a joint list for the European elections, which could significantly increase their weight in the European Parliament. In the Netherlands, the Liberals recently made gains following the resignation of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the calling of new elections. All in all, the RE has slightly improved its position in the projection and now stands at 94 seats (+2).

Left and Greens lose

Much worse were the recent numbers for the parties on the left side of the political spectrum. After staying very stable for most of the current parliamentary term, the Left group in the European Parliament has suffered significant losses in recent weeks. While the German Linke is on the verge of splitting, Spain’s Podemos recently joined the green-left alliance Sumar, which, however, has been largely overshadowed in the election campaign by the social-democratic PSOE. Greece’s Syriza fell short of expectations in the national parliamentary elections in June, and France’s LFI has come under criticism for its ambivalent stance on the recent riots. All in all, the Left Group falls to 41 seats (–⁠8) – its weakest figure in this parliamentary term, although still just above the result of 2019.

The Greens/EFA group, on the other hand, suffered from poor poll ratings for a long time during this parliamentary term, but was able to improve them somewhat in the course of last year. In the latest projection, this upswing is dampened again. Among other countries, the Greens are struggling especially in Germany. Overall, the Greens/EFA group would now have 48 seats (–⁠2), which is a decent figure in comparison to the last years, but still far from their result of 2019.

ID gains, ECR stable

On the other side of the semicircle, the slow rise of the right-wing groups ID and ECR continues. The ID is benefiting above all from the surge of the German AfD, but also from recent gains of the Dutch PVV. The Portuguese Chega, on the other hand, has recently seen a setback in its general upward tendency. In total, the ID now stands at 70 seats (+3).

Meanwhile, the ECR recently fell back in Spain and other countries, but can also make gains in Romania and thus reaches an unchanged total of 79 seats (±⁠0). However, the group’s prospects have improved considerably in the dynamic scenario, which also takes into account possible accessions of parties that so far have been non-attached or not represented in the Parliament.

Non-attached and “other” parties

These non-attached (36 seats/+3) and “other” parties (41 seats/+5) make significant inroads in the current seat projection, mainly due to gains by right-wing newcomer parties. A major winner of the last weeks is the right-wing populist Reconquête party from France, whose leader Éric Zemmour made headlines ahead of the 2022 French presidential election. After the riots in France, the party could now clear the five-percent threshold again – and recently announced interest in joining the ECR group after the European election.

Other right-wing parties that have increased their positions in the polls include the Polish Konfederacja, the Slovak SNS and the Lithuanian LT. Also new in the tableau are the Spartiátes (a successor party to the banned neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi) and the equally far-right NIKI, both of which entered the national parliament at the first attempt in the Greek parliamentary elections in June.

However, it was not only right-wingers that made gains among the “other” parties: The centre-left party LRP from Lithuania and the left-wing PE from Greece can now also hope for a seat in the European Parliament again. The Dutch BBB, on the other hand, suffered significant losses, falling sharply in the polls after the announcement of new national elections.

Still no unified far-right group

The far-right camp thus fares even better in the dynamic than in the baseline scenario of the seat projection. Both the ECR (with Reconquête) and the ID (with the Hungarian governing party Fidesz) could almost equal the seat share of the liberal RE. If they were to merge, they would even be vying with the EPP and S&D for the place as the strongest parliamentary group.

However, it remains unlikely that such a merger (which has been speculated about for years) will really come about. Even if there are many programmatic similarities between the ECR and the ID in matters of migration, climate, or identity policy, their different positions on Russia remain an important obstacle. Moreover, in several member states – such as Italy, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands –⁠, ECR and ID member parties compete with each other and don’t always maintain the best relations.

In addition, the ECR is currently involved in governments with the EPP in several member states (Italy, Czech Republic, Finland, Latvia) and its best chances of increasing its influence at European level also lie in cooperating with the EPP. However, in order to normalise this cooperation, the EPP in particular is keen to distinguish between the “moderate” right of the ECR and the “extreme” right of the ID. A possible merger of the two groups would run counter to this narrative and would therefore not be in the interests of the ECR.

The centre of gravity tilts to the right

For the same reasons, it is also unlikely that a coalition of EPP, ECR and ID will play a central formative role after the 2024 European elections. Still, the recent vote on the nature restoration law shows that such a right-wing alliance may well gain significance, at least when it comes to blocking proposals it doesn’t like. Mobilising a centre-left majority against EPP, ECR and ID is likely to become even more difficult in the next European Parliament than it already is now.

In the end, this could well be the most important aspect of the right-wing shift after the 2024 European election: In the last years, the “centrist grand coalition” of EPP, S&D and RE (or Greens) was always balanced by the possibility of a centre-left alliance between S&D, RE, Greens/EFA and the Left. Without this centre-left alternative, the S&D loses options and becomes dependent on cooperating with the EPP to form a majority. Conversely, the centre-right alliance of EPP, RE and ECR could gain importance in the future: not necessarily as the main option to push through legislation – the differences between RE and ECR on many issues are too large for that –⁠, but as an alternative that allows the EPP to put pressure on the S&D.

For structural reasons, European elections have never led to drastic political changes, and they will not do so in 2024 either. But the centre of gravity in the European Parliament is tilting to the right – and this will eventually also have an impact on concrete policy decisions.

The overview

The following table breaks down the distribution of seats in the projection 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 their 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 other possible future group changes of individual national parties. In the table, the changes in the dynamic scenario compared to the baseline scenario are indicated by a coloured font and a mouseover text.

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.

New national seat quotas

And another technical note: Before the European election, the member states’ national seat quotas are redefined. According to Art. 14 (2) TEU, this must be done according to the principle of “degressive proportionality” – large states get more seats than small ones, but small states get more seats per inhabitant than large ones. As the number of inhabitants of the countries changes, the seat quotas have to be adjusted before each election.

There is no set formula for this, however. Instead, the European Council (on the initiative and with the consent of the European Parliament) must take a unanimous decision on the distribution of seats. In June, the European Parliament has tabled a proposal in this regard, which would give some countries additional seats and increase the overall size of the Parliament. However, the final decision rests with the heads of state and government. Provisionally, the seat projection is therefore still based on the old distribution of 705 seats.

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	ID	NI	other
EP today	37	72	143	101	177	66	62	47	–
May 23	49	50	137	92	162	79	67	33	36
July 23	41	48	136	94	160	79	70	36	41
dynamic	43	52	137	99	167	89	87	31	–
	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	ID	NI	other
DE	4 Linke	14 Grüne 1 Piraten 1 ÖDP 1 Volt	17 SPD	7 FDP 2 FW	26 Union 1 Familie		19 AfD	2 Partei	1 Tier
FR	7 LFI	8 EELV	8 PS	18 Ens	9 LR		23 RN	6 Rec
IT			16 PD	8 Az-IV-+EU	7 FI 1 SVP	24 FdI	8 Lega	13 M5S
ES	5 Sumar 1 Bildu	3 Sumar 1 ERC	18 PSOE	1 PNV	22 PP	8 Vox
PL			4 Lewica	3 PL2050	16 KO 2 KP	19 PiS			8 Konf
RO			11 PSD	5 USR	7 PNL 2 UDMR	8 AUR
NL	1 PvdD 1 SP	3 GL 1 Volt	3 PvdA	6 VVD 2 D66	1 CDA 1 CU	1 JA21	3 PVV		6 BBB
EL	4 Syriza		2 PASOK		9 ND	1 EL		2 KKE	1 PE 1 NIKI 1 Spart
BE	3 PTB	1 Groen 1 Ecolo	2 Vooruit 2 PS	1 O-VLD 2 MR	1 CD&V 1 LE 1 CSP	3 N-VA	3 VB
PT	2 BE 1 CDU	1 PAN	6 PS	2 IL	6 PSD		3 CH
CZ		3 Piráti		10 ANO	1 STAN	5 ODS	2 SPD
HU			4 DK	2 MM	1 KDNP			11 Fidesz	2 MHM 1 MKKP
SE	2 V		9 S	1 C	5 M	4 SD
AT		2 Grüne	5 SPÖ	1 Neos	5 ÖVP		6 FPÖ
BG			2 BSP	3 DPS	5 GERB				4 PP-DB 3 V
DK	1 Enhl.	2 SF	4 S	2 V 2 LA 1 M	1 K				1 DD
FI	1 Vas	1 Vihreät	3 SDP	1 Kesk	4 Kok	4 PS
SK			3 Smer-SSD 2 Hlas-SD	2 PS	1 D 1 KDH 1 OĽANO	1 SaS	1 SR	1 REP	1 SNS
IE	6 SF			3 FF	4 FG
HR			3 SDP		5 HDZ				2 Možemo 1 Most 1 DP
LT		1 LVŽS	3 LSDP	1 LRLS	1 TS-LKD			1 DP	2 DSVL 1 LRP 1 LT
LV		1 Prog	1 SDPS		2 JV	1 NA			1 ZZS 1 LRA 1 S!
SI			1 SD	4 GS	3 SDS
EE			1 SDE	2 RE 1 KE	1 Isamaa		2 EKRE
CY	2 AKEL		1 EDEK 1 DIKO		2 DISY
LU		1 Gréng 1 PPLU	1 LSAP	1 DP	2 CSV
MT			3 PL		3 PN

Development (baseline scenario)

	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	ID	NI	other
17/07/2023	41	48	136	94	160	79	70	36	41
22/05/2023	49	50	137	92	162	79	67	33	36
27/03/2023	44	42	137	94	162	78	68	38	42
01/02/2023	50	42	135	96	168	78	65	37	34
06/12/2022	51	44	136	93	166	79	64	37	35
12/10/2022	52	42	127	100	169	79	63	35	38
20/08/2022	52	47	134	98	170	75	63	27	39
22/06/2022	54	44	133	101	165	77	64	31	36
25/04/2022	59	39	139	97	157	78	64	38	34
01/03/2022	53	36	139	98	158	78	62	45	36
04/01/2022	51	39	142	99	165	73	62	34	40
08/11/2021	50	42	144	96	155	75	72	36	35
13/09/2021	54	42	141	98	160	70	75	33	32
21/07/2021	52	45	133	97	167	71	74	31	35
24/05/2021	50	50	125	95	167	74	73	33	38
29/03/2021	52	46	136	96	164	71	73	34	33
02/02/2021	52	45	135	94	184	70	71	21	33
09/12/2020	52	47	136	93	188	67	73	20	29
12/10/2020	51	49	127	96	193	67	71	21	30
14/08/2020	50	53	145	88	196	65	64	20	24
25/06/2020	48	55	143	91	203	64	63	20	18
26/04/2020	47	53	151	88	202	66	66	19	13
10/03/2020	51	58	138	88	188	67	82	21	12
09/01/2020	49	58	135	93	186	65	82	24	13
23/11/2019	48	57	138	99	181	62	82	22	16
23/09/2019	49	61	139	108	175	56	82	24	11
30/07/2019	47	64	138	108	180	57	82	22	7
EP 2019	40	68	148	97	187	62	76	27	–

The “EP 2019” line indicates the distribution of seats as of July 2, 2019, when the European Parliament was constituted following the election in May 2019.
The table shows the values of the baseline scenario without the United Kingdom. An overview of the values including the United Kingdom for the period up to January 2020 can be found here. An overview of older projections from the 2014-2019 electoral period is here.

The full names of the parliamentary groups and of the national parties appear as mouseover text when the mouse pointer is held motionless on the designation in the table for a short time. If a party is attributed to a different parliamentary group in the dynamic scenario than in the baseline scenario, this is also indicated in the mouseover text.

Attribution of national parties to parliamentary groups

Baseline scenario: For the projection, parties that are already represented in the European Parliament are assigned to their current parliamentary group, unless they have explicitly declared that they will change group after the next European election. 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 are required to form a parliamentary group. Groupings marked with an asterisk (*) would not currently meet these conditions according to the projection. They would therefore have to win over additional MEPs after the European elections 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 to a different parliamentary group in the dynamic scenario are marked in the table with the colour of that group; moreover, the name of the group appears in the mouseover text. The attributions in the dynamic scenario are based on a subjective assessment of the political orientation and strategy of the parties and can therefore 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.

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 there are no specific European election polls or where the last such poll was taken more than a fortnight ago, the most recent poll available for the national parliamentary election or the average of all polls for the national or European Parliament from the two weeks preceding the most recent poll available 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 converted to the total number of seats in the country. For countries where the election is held in regional constituencies without proportional representation (currently Belgium and Ireland), regional polling data is used where available. Where this is not the case, the number of seats is still calculated for each constituency individually, but using the overall national polling data in each case. 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 seats on the joint list. This concerns the following parties: Italy: SI (place 1 and 3 on the list) and EV (2, 4); Spain: ERC (1, 3-4), Bildu (2) and BNG (5); PNV (1) and CC (2); Poland: PL2050 (1, 3, 5 etc.) and KP (2, 4, 6 etc.); Netherlands: GL (1, 3, 5 etc.) and PvdA (2, 4, 6 etc.); CU (1, 3-4) and SGP (2, 5); Hungary: Fidesz (1-6, from 8) and KDNP (7); Slovakia: PS (1) and D (2). Moreover, it is assumed that among the members of the Spanish political alliance Sumar, two thirds will join the Left and one third will join the Greens/EFA group.
In France, several centre-left parties (LFI, PS, EELV, PCF) have joined forces to form the electoral alliance NUPES for the 2022 national parliamentary election. However, it is unlikely that this alliance will last in the next European election. In the projection, therefore, the poll ratings or electoral results of the alliance are divided among the individual parties according to the ratio of the average poll ratings of the parties in the most recent polls that showed them individually.
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 at the last European election (2 seats each for PARTEI and FW, 1 seat each for Tierschutzpartei, ödp, Piraten, Volt and Familienpartei). Only if a small party achieves a better value in current polls than in the last European election, the poll rating is used instead.
In Italy, a special rule makes it easier for minority parties to enter the European Parliament. In the projection, the Südtiroler Volkspartei is therefore always listed with its result at the last European election (1 seat).

 

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, 4-15/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
France: European election polls, 26/6-5/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Italy: national polls, 6-14/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Spain: national polls, 4-16/7//2023, source: Wikipedia.
Poland: national polls, 2-13/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Romania: national polls, June 2023, source: Wikipedia.
Netherlands: national polls, 16/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Greece: results of the national parliamentary election, 25/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, Dutch-speaking community: regional polls (Flanders) for the national parliamentary election, 6/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, French-speaking community: regional polls (Wallonia) for the national parliamentary election, 6/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, German-speaking community: results of the European election, 26/5/2019.
Portugal: national polls, 6/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Czech Republic: national polls, 2/5-2/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Hungary: national polls, 10-13/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Sweden: national polls, 25/5-7/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Austria: national polls, 12/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Bulgaria: national polls, 26/6-9/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Denmark: national polls, 25/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Finland: national polls, 4-15/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Slovakia: national polls, 16-28/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Ireland: national polls, 23/6-1/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Croatia: national polls, 4-9/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Lithuania: national polls, 29/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Latvia: national polls, June 2023, source: Wikipedia.
Slovenia: national polls, 6/7/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Estonia: national polls, 13-20/6/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Cyprus: first round results of the national presidential election, 5/2/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Luxembourg: national polls, 6/4/2023, source: Wikipedia.
Malta: national polls, 19/5/2023, source: Wikipedia.

 

Pictures: All graphs: Manuel Müller.