EU Analytics – May 2026 review: A swing back to the European Parliament of old

By Nicolai von Ondarza

The EP vote on repression in Iran was less noteworthy for its result, but as an example of a supermajority in which almost all groups voted together.

May 2026 was a month that looked more like the previous legislative periods in terms of voting: There was no vote in the European Parliament for which the far right was decisive, and all but one votes found the support of all three “von der Leyen” platform parties, the centre-right EPP, the centre-left S&D and the liberal Renew.

Going with this theme, as a highlight of the month I chose a vote that represents a surprising large amount of parliamentary votes in the EU: the supermajority, here with a 90+% support for a resolution on repression in Iran. Over at the Council, the most interesting vote was one reflecting the traditional cleavages on trade policy, with a decision on a new Generalised Scheme of Preferences passing by the slimmest of margins, against opposition from most of Southern Europe demanding more protection on rice.

Time to dive in:

Highlight of the month: EP vote on repression and executions in Iran

Amongst many more “standard” votes in May (see below), as highlight of the month I opted for a kind of vote that I have not yet focused on at EU Analytics – the supermajorities of (almost) all groups voting together. This is a regular and often overlooked feature of the European Parliament: As it does not have the typical government-opposition division line and each dossier is negotiated mostly independently, there are quite often votes that get 70+ or sometimes even 90+ per cent of support in the chambre, despite the increase in polarisation and politicisation.

The example at hand is a resolution adopted on 21 May 2026 in regards to Iran, so on first sight with the potential for controversy while the US and Iran continue their negotiations during a fraught ceasefire. The short resolution, however, focuses solely on what it calls the “largest mass murder of protesters in the country’s history” during the 2025-26 uprising. On these, the majority of the EP expresses solidarity with the Iranian people, condemns the regime and then calls for expansion of sanctions on Iranian officials responsible, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and for EU support of an UN International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. On the US/Israel war against Iran, the resolution does not take a position at all.

An example of a supermajority

The result is an overwhelming majority of 91% (516 to 14 votes in favour, plus 39 abstentions. On the level of political groups, except The Left (of which around two thirds abstained) all political groups voted in favour. This includes full support from all three of the “von der Leyen” platform parties, the Greens, and also amongst the far right, with the ECR and “Patriots for Europe” voting almost completely in favour, while the ESN had about a third abstentions. Broken down by nationality, all member states had a clear majority in favour, except Cyprus, from which 0 MEPs voted. My assumption here is that this is due to Cyprus’s parliamentary elections that took place on the following weekend, so likely the MEPs were campaigning instead of voting.

The vote is therefore less noteworthy for the result itself but for the kind of results it stands for in the EP: that of supermajorities where almost all MEPs agree.

Data source: HowTheyVote.EU.

Final votes in the European Parliament

In May 2026, the EP had one plenary session, from 18-21 May in Strasbourg. A major symbolic event was the first “European Order of Merit” ceremony, honouring Europeans who made major contribution to European integration (and who were each of course controversial). In terms of the votes, the plenary session had 25 votes recorded at HowTheyVote.EU. Looking at the data from these votes, a more traditional picture emerges:

Amongst the 25 votes, the three parties of the “von der Leyen” platform, the centre-right EPP, the centre-left S&D and the liberal Renew, voted together 24 times. This also meant that EPP and Renew were part of the majority in 25 votes with a 100 per cent overlap in voting behaviour, with the S&D joining them in all votes but one, reaching a win rate of 96 per cent and an equally sized overlap with the EPP and Renew.

Data source: Own calculation based on HowTheyVote.EU.

The only vote where they parted ways was an own-initiative report on care work and specifically the gender care gap, on which the majority of the S&D abstained. In the view of the S&D, the EPP – accused of working with other right-wing parties – was regarded as too successful in removing progressive elements from the report. Despite the S&D abstentions, the report got a majority also with support from the Left, the Greens and even parts of the ECR and Patriots for Europe.

On the other side, the far-right this month was even more split than usual. The ECR, for instance, voted with the centre-right EPP about 64 per cent of the time, with the Patriots for Europe 52 per cent, and with the ESN only 32 per cent of the time. All three far-right groups voted together in only 24 per cent of the votes. This also contributed to the fact that there was no “Venezuela” vote this month where the centre-right EPP had a majority together with the far-right.

Data source: Own calculation based on HowTheyVote.EU.

Public votes in the Council of the EU

For monitoring the Council votes, the analysis builds upon the public votes published, which are always fewer. For May 2026, six public votes are recorded. Of these, only two were adopted by unanimity, with two with abstentions and two with no votes. Amongst those, a few interesting bits stood out to me:

• The most controversial vote was on 22 May on a new Generalised Scheme of Preferences regulation, which included a classical EU trade-off: Most member states were in favour of reducing tariffs towards developing countries, whereas several Southern European countries – claiming to be responsible for 85% of the EU’s rice production – wanted stricter safeguards for rice. In the end, Italy, Greece and Spain voted against (representing 26.35% of EU population), whereas Belgium and Portugal abstained (5%). The first reading decision thus passed only by a relatively slim majority of 68.64% of the required 65%.
• In one of the first “German votes” of the new German government, Berlin was the only one who abstained on changing the act concerning the election of the European Parliament, a specific change to allow proxy voting for MEPs during maternity leave.
• Hungary, with the new Tisza government in power from 8 May onwards, did not vote against or abstain on any of the votes. These were just a handful of votes, though, and I will keep a special eye on how Budapest’s voting behaviour changes.

Nicolai von Ondarza is Head of the Research Division EU/Europe of the German Institute of International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik).

EU Analytics is a monthly column by Nicolai von Ondarza. It focuses on data-driven analysis of EU institutional affairs, looking at voting in the European Parliament and the public votes of the Council of the EU. The articles are cross-posted here from Nicolai’s own newsletter on Substack, where he occasionally also does other institutional analysis.

Pictures: all graphs: Nicolai von Ondarza; portrait Nicolai von Ondarza: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik [all rights reserved].