European Parliament seat projection (January 2026): Far-right setback – trend reversal or statistical blip?

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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	46	53	136	75	188	79	85	27	31	–
Nov. 25 (B)	51	37	124	71	175	81	105	39	24	13
Jan. 25 (B)	53	37	122	71	177	80	104	38	27	11
Jan. 25 (D)	54	37	123	73	177	86	106	38	26	–

Baseline scenario,
as of 7 January 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)

Dynamic scenario,
as of 7 January 2026.
(Click to enlarge.)

Pro-Europeans in need of a glimmer of hope may find it in the latest European election polls: For the second time in a row, the share of seats held by far-right groups in the EP seat projection has declined slightly; and while this was still associated with a radicalisation within the far-right camp in the previous projection in November, this time all three far-right groups are among the losers. Instead, the main winners are the Left group as well as non-aligned left-conservative and left-nationalist parties.

However, it is uncertain whether these figures really indicate a trend reversal. The changes are very small in all cases, and the overall picture has barely changed since autumn. Moreover, certain fluctuations in polls are to be expected for statistical reasons alone. Just because the far-right parties have experienced a long-term upward trend does not mean that they will perform better in every single seat projection than in the previous one. Conversely, individual setbacks do not necessarily indicate that this trend has ended.

For now, the latest figures only reveal that even European far-right parties may occasionally have a drop in their poll ratings. How European political sentiment will evolve further in the new year remains to be seen. In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at the latest developments.

EPP with slight gains

The centre-right European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament, is among the winners of recent weeks. The conservatives have made gains in Romania and Latvia, and to a lesser extent in Slovakia. By contrast, their poll numbers have declined somewhat in Ireland, and their Hungarian member party, Tisza, has also recorded slight losses compared to the November projection.

However, the latter should be taken with a pinch of salt. Hungarian opinion pollsters are highly politicised and have been producing widely differing figures in the run-up to the national parliamentary elections in spring. In the projection, this institutional bias is partially neutralised by using an average of all polls published within a two-week period. Still, Tisza’s recent losses can at least in part be explained by the fact that more polls have been published by pro-government institutes in recent weeks than at the beginning of November. The true rapport of forces in Hungary will only be revealed by the national elections themselves – provided that they are free and fair.

Overall, the EPP now stands at 177 seats (+2 compared to November) in the baseline scenario of the seat projection. This is its best figure since July 2025, and is roughly in line with the average for recent years, though it is significantly worse than the result achieved in the 2024 European elections.

S&D in a new all-time low

The situation is looking much bleaker for the centre-left S&D group, which continues to lose support in the polls. Centre-left parties are gaining some ground in Poland and the Netherlands, but are experiencing slight setbacks in Denmark, Finland and Lithuania, three countries where they had been polling quite well in recent months. In Bulgaria, the Social Democrats’ poll ratings have also declined somewhat, and in Hungary they would not win any seats in the European Parliament at all now (according to polls conducted by both pro-government and opposition-aligned opinion research institutes).

Overall, the S&D group is now projected to win only 122 seats (–⁠2), falling to a new historic low. The difficulty of their situation is also evident in their position relative to the other groups: While the S&D group has consistently been the second strongest force in the European Parliament behind the EPP since the 1999 election, it has repeatedly had realistic hopes of overtaking the EPP (for example in the 2014 election, where it even pulled ahead in terms of votes). Since the 2024 European election, however, the EPP’s lead has remained fairly stable at just over 50 seats – and in the current projection, it is more than three times as large as the S&D’s lead over the third strongest force, the far-right PfE group.

RE unchanged

Another party that was overtaken by the PfE some time ago is the liberal RE group, the third force in the political centre. It has been in a prolonged downward trend for over three years now – though, at least, this trend has not accelerated recently.

The last few weeks have brought some further bad news for the Liberals, particularly in Italy, where they have slipped below the national four per cent threshold again. However, these losses are offset by gains in Bulgaria and Portugal, among other countries. Overall, the RE group therefore remains unchanged at 71 seats (±⁠0).

Greens stable, Left gains ground

The Greens/EFA group also remains stable at a low level. Here, minimal losses in Germany (which are probably only due to random fluctuations) are offset by slight gains in Denmark. In total, the Greens/EFA group thus continues to hold 37 seats (±⁠0).

Meanwhile, the Left group is gaining ground, partly benefiting from the weakness of the Social Democrats. In particular, Ireland’s SF has strengthened its position as the strongest national force, while Spain’s Podemos and Finland’s Vasemmistoliitto are also gaining slightly. Cyprus’s AKEL, on the other hand, is falling back slightly due to minor fluctuations in the polls, leaving the Left group with a total of 53 seats (+2).

Far right takes a hit

Meanwhile, as already mentioned, the far-right side of the political spectrum has experienced a decline in the polls: In the baseline scenario of the projection, all three far-right groups (ECR, PfE, and ESN) lose exactly one seat each compared to November.

On the one hand, this does not sound particularly impressive: Fluctuations of this magnitude are actually quite normal. On the other hand, however, this is actually the first time since August 2022 – i.e. in almost three and a half years – that the far-right camp as a whole has fallen behind by more than two seats compared to the previous projection. (The only exception being May 2024, when the German AfD had just been excluded from the PfE’s predecessor group, ID, and therefore no longer appeared in the projection as part of the far-right camp, but as a non-attached party.)

The fact that this rather minor setback is so noticeable is thus primarily an indication of how strong and consistent the rise of Europe’s far-right parties has been in recent years.

Minimal losses for ECR, PfE, ESN

And even now, the losses are by no means uniform. In the ECR group, for instance, Italy’s FdI and Belgium’s N-VA have made slight gains. Latvia’s NA and Poland’s PiS, on the other hand, have fallen back, and Spain’s SALF would not win a single seat in the European Parliament now. Overall, the ECR group now stands at 80 seats (–⁠1).

In the PfE group, the Belgian VB, the Austrian FPÖ and the Portuguese Chega are losing seats in the projection – although this is only due to minor fluctuations in the polls in the case of the latter two. The losses are partially offset by gains for Hungary’s Fidesz, but, as previously mentioned, these gains are at least partly attributable to the bias of pro-government Hungarian polling institutes. Overall, the PfE group retains 104 seats (–⁠1).

Finally, there have been almost no changes within the ESN group, with only the Slovak member party Republika experiencing a slight decline in popularity. Overall, the ESN now has 38 seats (–⁠1). This brings an end to a spectacular run of the group, which since its foundation had been gaining seats in the projections eight times in a row.

Non-attached and “other” parties

The biggest gains in recent weeks have been made by the non-aligned parties, among which very different political orientations are on the rise:

• In Greece, the left-wing nationalist PE party is gaining ground. Having overtaken the former governing party Syriza (Left), it is now challenging the social democratic PASOK (S&D) for its position as the strongest national opposition party.
• In Germany, the left-conservative BSW is internally divided and struggling for political relevance – but it is largely stable in the polls and has now gone up one seat due to minimal fluctuations.
• In Poland, the monarchist, antisemitic and anti-Ukrainian KKP has gained some more ground.
• In Cyprus, Fidías Panayiótou, who entered the European Parliament as an independent candidate in the 2024 election, has founded his own party in October 2025. According to current polls, it could win again one seat.

In contrast, the Catalan separatist party Junts would no longer be represented in the European Parliament. This is due to an increasing fragmentation of the Catalan separatist movement: In recent months, Junts has lost more and more ground to the far-right Aliança Catalana – which, however, is also far from winning a seat in the European Parliament. Overall, the non-attached parties are projected to win 27 seats (+3).

The “other” parties (which are not currently represented in the European Parliament and do not belong to any European party, meaning they cannot be clearly assigned to any political group) have lost ground in recent weeks. While the Lithuanian right-wing party NA has gained slightly, the Irish Social Democrats (SD) have fallen back somewhat, and the Romanian populist far-right party POT would now fail to clear the national five per cent threshold once again. Together, the politically heterogeneous “others” nowhold 11 seats (–⁠2).

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	75	188	79	85	27	31	–
Nov. 25 (B)	51	37	124	71	175	81	105	39	24	13
Jan. 25 (B)	53	37	122	71	177	80	104	38	27	11
Jan. 25 (D)	54	37	123	73	177	86	106	38	26	–
	Left	G/EFA	S&D	RE	EPP	ECR	PfE	ESN	NI	other
DE	9 Linke 1 Tier	10 Grüne 3 Volt	13 SPD	3 FDP 3 FW	22 Union 1 Familie 1 ÖDP			23 AfD	4 BSW 2 Partei 1 PdF
FR	8 LFI		13 PS	14 RE	12 LR		34 RN
IT	11 M5S 2 SI	3 EV	19 PD		7 FI 1 SVP	26 FdI	7 Lega
ES	3 Pod 2 Sumar 1 Bildu	2 Sumar 1 ERC	18 PSOE	1 PNV	21 PP		12 Vox
PL			4 Lewica		18 KO	15 PiS	5 Konf	6 Konf	5 KKP
RO			8 PSD	3 USR 1 PMP	7 PNL	14 AUR
NL		2 GL	3 PvdA	7 D66 5 VVD	4 CDA		6 PVV	2 FvD
BE	3 PTB	1 Groen	1 Vooruit 3 PS	1 O-VLD 2 MR 1 LE	2 CD&V 1 CSP	4 N-VA	3 VB
CZ		2 Piráti			2 STAN 1 TOP09 1 KDU-ČSL	4 ODS	8 ANO 1 AUTO	2 SPD
EL	1 Syriza		3 PASOK		7 ND	3 EL	1 FL		3 PE 2 KKE	1 MéRA
HU					10 TISZA		10 Fidesz	1 MHM
PT		1 Livre	6 PS	2 IL	7 AD		5 Chega
SE	2 V	1 MP	7 S	1 C	4 M 1 KD	5 SD
AT		2 Grüne	4 SPÖ	2 Neos	4 ÖVP		8 FPÖ
BG			1 BSP	3 PP	5 GERB 1 DB			3 V	3 DPS-NN	1 MECh
DK	1 Enhl.	3 SF	3 S	2 V 1 RV	2 LA 1 K	1 DD	1 DF
SK				4 PS	2 Slov 1 KDH 1 D	1 SaS		1 REP	3 Smer 2 Hlas
FI	2 Vas	1 Vihreät	4 SDP	2 Kesk	3 Kok	3 PS
IE	6 SF			4 FF	3 FG					1 SD
HR		2 Možemo	4 SDP		5 HDZ					1 Most
LT		2 DSVL	2 LSDP	1 LS	3 TS-LKD	1 LVŽS				2 NA
LV		1 Prog			2 JV	1 NA 1 LRA	2 LPV			1 ZZS 1 ST!
SI			1 SD	3 GS	4 SDS 1 N.Si
EE			1 SDE	1 RE 2 KE	2 Isamaa		1 EKRE
CY	1 AKEL				2 DISY	1 ELAM			1 AD	1 ALMA
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
26-01-07	53	37	122	71	177	88	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
26-01-07	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); Netherlands: PvdA (1, 3, 5 etc.) and GL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Czechia: Spolu: TOP09 (1, 3, 5 etc.) and KDU-ČSL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Stačilo: Stačilo (1, 3, 5 etc.) and SOCDEM (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: Konfederacja: NN (1, 3, 5 etc.) and RN (2, 4, 6 etc.). 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 Czechia, some polls combine ODS (ECR), TOP09 and KDU-ČSL (both EPP); in these cases, two thirds of the seats are allocated to the ODS and one third to the alliance of TOP09 and KDU-ČSL. 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, 5/1/2026, source: Wikipedia.
France: national polls, 7-8/10/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Italy: national polls, 11-22/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Spain: national polls, 29/12/2025-3/1/2026, source: Wikipedia.
Poland: national polls, 21/12/2025-3/1/2026, source: Wikipedia.
Romania: national polls, 17-19/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Netherlands: national polls, 15-19/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, French community: Wallonian polls for the national parliamentary election, 9/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, Dutch community: Flemish polls for the national parliamentary election, 9/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, German community: European election results, 9/6/2024.
Czechia: national parliamentary election results, 3-4/10/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Greece: national polls, 16-29/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Hungary: national polls, 18-20/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Portugal: national polls, 12-19/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Sweden: national polls, 16-29/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Austria: national polls, 5/1/2026, source: Wikipedia.
Bulgaria: national polls, 7-12/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Denmark: national polls, 11-21/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Slovakia: national polls, 9-16/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Finland: national polls, 2/1/2026, source: Wikipedia.
Ireland: national polls, 5/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Croatia: national polls, 25/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Lithuania: national polls, 16-29/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Latvia: national polls, 4/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Slovenia: national polls, 17-28/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Estonia: national polls, 10-21/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Cyprus: national polls, 3/12/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Luxembourg: national polls, 29/9/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Malta: national polls, 13-20/11/2025, source: Wikipedia.

Manuel Müller is the editor of the blog “Der (europäische) Föderalist”.

Pictures: all graphs: Manuel Müller; portrait Manuel Müller: Finnish Institute of International Affairs [all rights reserved].