EU Analytics – June 2026 review: The growing relevance of the far right

By Nicolai von Ondarza

No longer a marginal phenomenon: Far-right groups now quite regularly have a decisive impact on the outcome of votes in the European Parliament.

After last month looked more like the previous legislative period with the “pro-European” centre dominating, the June voting in both EP and Council underlined the fracturing European political landscape. In the EP, a centre-right-to-far-right majority pushed through major changes to EU migration policy in the shape of “return hubs”, delivering a major victory to far-right forces that pushed for such hardening of migration policy for a long time. But also outside of that there were several other votes where (parts of) the far right were decisive.

Over in the Council, there was another very close vote with six member states being outvoted on a regulation on farmers and food supply chains while the new Hungarian government voted (together with Vienna) against the rest of the EU for the first time.

Time to dive in:

Highlight of the month: EP vote on return hubs and home searches

In political terms, the most consequential vote this month was the EP vote approving a further hardening of EU migration policy, including setting the framework for speedier deportations of migrants with no legal right to remain in the EU, and setting up “return hubs” outside of the EU.

This was not only another example of the “Venezuela” majority of the EPP with the far right (ECR, PfE and ESN) that readers of this column will know well by now. It was an example where the centre-right together with the far right pushed through a major policy change throughout the whole policy process, from deliberation in the relevant committees, fending off amendments, adopting the EP position towards the Council and the Commission in the trilogue, and now finally adopting the legislation. An investigation by the German Press Agency dpa from March 2026 also shows that this was a case of clear coordination between the EPP and all three far-right groups, including the AfD-led ESN. When the final law was adopted, far-right MEPs chanted “send them back” in the EP plenary to celebrate their victory.

Data source: HowTheyVote.EU.

The vote itself was, however, notably clear: 418 MEPs voted in favour (63%), and only 218 (33%) against. The majority was thus composed of the EPP together with all three far-right groups from the ECR to the Patriots for Europe to all ESN members, but also a majority of MEPs from Renew (37 to 21 with 20 abstentions/did not vote) as well as a few rebels from S&D (9) and the Greens/EFA (2). It was thus not only a repeat of previous “Venezuela” type votes, but also had a comparably strong support amongst Renew. As shown below, this is a recent trend, where we now have several votes of the centre-right-to-far-right majority supported by many in the “centrist” Renew.

This, then, was the clearest manifestation of the EPP moving to the right and the far right defining EU policy. “The era of deportations has begun,” claimed the Swedish negotiator for the ECR as a first group of EU countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Greece, are preparing to set up such return hubs.

Final votes in the European Parliament

In June 2026, the EP had one plenary session, from 15 to 18 June in Strasbourg. Overall, the plenary had 35 final votes recorded at HowTheyVote.EU. Key topics of the plenary included the EP positions on the various accession processes, competitiveness, the adoption of the final pieces implementing the EU-US Turnberry trade deal, migration policy as discussed above, and the adoption of the digital omnibus regarding AI. Looking at the data from these votes, three interesting aspects emerge:

First, not only on the return hubs, but also in other policy areas the far-right made its influence felt. Of the 35 votes, there were seven (so 20 per cent!) in which at least one of the far-right groups was decisive for the vote. Whereas two of them concerned the return hubs, the five others were spread across different policy areas:

• In two separate votes a majority of EPP, ECR, PfE and some rebels from Renew voted in favour of new arrangements for excise duty applied to tobacco.
• A resolution on political repression and the humanitarian situation in Cuba was carried by the EPP with Renew and the ECR – so against both the further right and the centre-left to greens and far-left.
• A majority of EPP, ECR, PfE, ESN and parts of Renew formed a majority for implementing the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.
• Finally, a majority against plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques comprised most of the von der Leyen platform, but due to many rebels needed the votes from the ECR to reach a rejection.

All told, these individual votes add to the complex picture of at least the ECR being needed more and more for majorities, also where the centre-left and centre-right groups are split.

Data source: Own calculation based on HowTheyVote.EU.

The second observation is closely related. This was a month where the “minority-type government” of the EPP really stood out in terms of winning the votes. Whereas the EPP was part of the majority in all but one of the votes – reaching a win rate of 97.1% - Renew was only at 94.3% and the S&D at 85.7%. This then is the first month I covered where the difference between the three parties of the “von der Leyen” platform was so large and so politically consequential.

Data source: Own calculation based on HowTheyVote.EU.

Finally, looking at all the votes and the co-voting behaviour, the strategic difference between the EPP and the far right still becomes clear. Despite the growing examples of a centre-right-to-far-right majority, on all of the 35 votes, the EPP still voted by 91% with Renew and by 83% with the S&D, compared to 71% with the ECR and, going further to the far right, only 43% with the “Patriots for Europe” and as low as 20% with the ESN, lower than even with The Left.

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 June 2026, a comparably high number of 11 votes were recorded. Of these, seven were adopted by unanimity, which is the highest share I have recorded since November last year (where nine out of ten were adopted by unanimity). But then there was also one vote with abstentions and one no vote each, as well as two with more no votes:

Voting result on a regulation on farmers and food supply chains, 29 June 2026.
(Source: Council of the EU. Click to enlarge.)

• The most controversial vote was on 29 June 2026 amending a regulation on farmers and food supply chains, with 3 member states voting against (Latvia, Netherlands, Sweden) and 3 abstaining (Germany, Denmark, Estonia). As amongst these were one big country (Germany) and three mid-sized (Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden), the overall vote was reasonably close, with “only” member states representing roughly 73 per cent of the EU population voting in favour. This was the regulation where the European Parliament wanted to include the infamous “veggie burger” ban, which was already taken out in trilogue. Still, the reasons it was controversial were questions of subsidiarity and restrictions on cultivated meat.
• This was the third month in a row where Germany abstained on one vote. In contrast to the aim of the Merz government to get rid of the “German vote”, Berlin is again abstaining quite regularly.
• Hungary, with the new Tisza government in power since 8 May, was outvoted for the first time. This was on a file on “circularity requirements for vehicle design”, where Budapest voted no together with Vienna.

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 additional institutional analysis.

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