Was hat Vertrauen damit zu tun? Politisches Vertrauen, polarisierte Meinungen und Klimaproteste in Europa

English

Von Louisa Parks

Das Horizon-Europe-Projekt Activating European Citizens’ Trust in Times of Crisis and Polarisation (ActEU) untersucht Fragen politischen Vertrauens und demokratischer Legitimität in Europa. Dieser Artikel ist Teil einer Serie, in der ActEU-Forscher:innen ihre Ergebnisse präsentieren.

„Protestierende – ob Klimaskeptiker:innen oder Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit – hegen nicht zwangsläufig Misstrauen gegenüber politischen Akteur:innen.“

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen haben gezeigt, dass die Meinungen der europäischen Bürger:innen zum Klimawandel zunehmend polarisiert sind, aber dass die Spaltung dabei nicht in erster Linie zwischen Klimagläubigen und Klimaleugner:innen (d. h. denen, die an die Existenz des vom Menschen verursachten Klimawandels glauben, und denen, die dies nicht tun) verläuft. In Europa ist das Bild differenzierter. Während die überwiegende Mehrheit der Europäer:innen die Existenz eines vom Menschen verursachten Klimawandels akzeptiert, bestehen erhebliche Meinungsverschiedenheiten über die konkreten politischen Maßnahmen, die daraus folgen: über ihre Art, ihren Umfang, ihr Tempo und vor allem ihre Kosten und der Frage, wer dafür aufkommen soll (Caldwell, Cohen und Vivyan 2024).

In der Forschung, die sich damit befasst, wie die Polarisierung im Bereich Klimawandel mit politischen Beteiligungsentscheidungen sowie politischem Vertrauen zusammenhängt, fehlt diese Sicht bis jetzt allerdings. In der Regel wird davon ausgegangen, dass Umweltschützer:innen mehr Vertrauen in politische Akteur:innen haben als Klimaskeptiker:innen. Aber gilt diese Annahme auch dann noch, wenn wir die Klimapolarisierung aus Policy-Sicht betrachten und nicht aus der Perspektive von Gläubigen vs. Leugner:innen? Und was bedeutet dies für politische Beteiligungsentscheidungen, insbesondere für die Entscheidung, an Protestaktionen teilzunehmen?

Für das ActEU-Projekt haben wir die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Polarisierung und Vertrauen deshalb mit einer anderen Operationalisierung untersucht, die näher an dem liegt, was wir über die Ansichten der Bürger zum Klimawandel in Europa wissen. Statt zwischen Leugner:innen (eine kleine Minderheit) und Gläubigen (eine breite und vielfältige Mehrheit) zu unterscheiden, haben wir uns mit dem politischen Vertrauen und den Partizipationsentscheidungen unter den Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit  (climate justice) einerseits und Klimaskeptiker:innen andererseits befasst.

Klimaskeptiker:innen vs. Klimagerechtigkeits-Aktivist:innen

Für unsere Zwecke umfasst das Lager der Klimaskeptiker:innen sowohl Klimaleugner:innen als auch Menschen, die zwar die Existenz des Klimawandels anerkennen, aber bezweifeln, dass er schädlich oder vom Menschen verursacht sei, oder die die Notwendigkeit politischer Maßnahmen gegen den Klimawandel in Frage stellen.

Bei der Definition des Gegenpols wiederum orientieren wir uns an Arbeiten zum Thema Umwelt- und Klimagerechtigkeit. Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit sind mehr als nur Verfechter:innen entschlossener Klimaschutzmaßnahmen. Sie betonen, dass sich der Klimawandel, der Verlust biologischer Vielfalt sowie andere Umweltkrisen auf Menschen je nach deren Wohlstand, Klasse, Geschlecht, ethnischer Zugehörigkeit, geografischer Lage und anderen Faktoren unterschiedlich auswirken. Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit plädieren daher für ganzheitliche Ansätze zum Klimawandel als einer Frage sozialer Gerechtigkeit und stellen die politisch vorherrschenden umweltpolitischen Diskurse in Europa, etwa den European Green Deal, in Frage (Machin 2025). Oft läuft dies auf Forderungen nach einem Systemwandel hinaus, der auch substanziellere demokratische Teilhabeformen beinhaltet.

In diesem Artikel diskutiere ich einige vorläufige Erkenntnisse über polarisierte Akteur:innen – Klimagerechtigkeits-Aktivist:innen und Klimaskeptiker:innen – und ihre politischen Vertrauens- und Partizipationsentscheidungen. Ich stütze mich dabei auf eine erste Auswertung von Social-Media-Daten aus X, die während des Projekts gesammelt wurden. Es handelt sich dabei um eine explorative Studie mit einer relativ begrenzten Stichprobe von Konten in europäischen Ländern. Abschließend stelle ich einige Überlegungen dazu an, was die Ergebnisse für die Politik und Demokratie der EU bedeuten könnten.

Politisches Misstrauen unter polarisierten Akteur:innen

Um das politische Vertrauen unter Akteur:innen im Bereich Klimagerechtigkeit und Klimaskepsis zu untersuchen, haben wir zunächst X-Accounts von Umweltgruppen identifiziert und anschließend diejenigen unter ihnen ermittelt, die sich für Klimagerechtigkeit einsetzen. Daraufhin haben wir per maschineller Analyse ihrer Botschaften untersucht und geprüft, inwiefern diese politisches Vertrauen oder Misstrauen zum Ausdruck brachten.

Ein erster interessanter Punkt ist, dass wir bei der Betrachtung der gesamten Gruppe von Umweltschutzorganisationen (also sowohl „Mainstream“-Gruppen als auch Klimagerechtigkeitsgruppen) keine eindeutigen Trends hinsichtlich politischen Vertrauens oder Misstrauens feststellen konnten. Mit anderen Worten: Die bloße Zugehörigkeit zu einer Umweltschutzorganisation scheint keine Auswirkungen auf das politische Vertrauen zu haben.

Klimagerechtigkeit-Akteur:innen äußern weniger Vertrauen

Wenn wir diese größere Gruppe jedoch in Mainstream- und Klimagerechtigkeitsgruppen unterteilen, zeichnet sich ein Trend ab. Mainstream-Organisationen (z. B. Bird-Life-Gruppen, WWF oder der World Water Council) verfassen Botschaften, die politisches Vertrauen zum Ausdruck bringen, indem sie beispielsweise politische Akteur:innen als ehrlich, kompetent und öffentlichkeitsorientiert beschreiben. Zudem verfassen diese Mainstream-Gruppen auch weniger Botschaften, die politisches Misstrauen zum Ausdruck bringen und politische Akteur:innen als unehrlich oder inkompetent darstellen. (Die Art und Weise, wie das ActEU-Projekt Vertrauen konzeptualisiert, verwendet spezifische Beschreibungen für Vertrauen und Misstrauen, anstatt den gängigeren Ansatz zu verwenden, bei dem Vertrauen gemessen wird, Misstrauen jedoch lediglich als das Fehlen von Vertrauen angesehen wird).

Klimagerechtigkeitsgruppen (wie Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion oder die Letzte Generation) verfassen hingegen seltener Botschaften, die Vertrauen in politische Akteur:innen ausdrücken, und häufiger Botschaften, in denen sie politische Akteur:innen als unehrlich und inkompetent bezeichnen. Die Polarisierung der Klimadebatte in Europa anhand von Klimagerechtigkeits- und Klimaskeptikergruppen zu untersuchen, erscheint daher vielversprechend: Mit diesem Ansatz lassen sich Erkenntnisse über politisches Misstrauen unter Befürworter:innen weitreichender Klimaschutzmaßnahmen gewinnen, die verborgen blieben, wenn man die Umweltorganisationen nur als Gesamtgruppe betrachten würde.

Klimaskeptiker:innen sind schwer zu identifizieren …

Während diese Ergebnisse zum politischen Vertrauen bei Klimagerechtigkeits-Aktivist:innen und bei etablierten Umweltschützer:innen bestätigen, was bereits in der Literatur angedeutet wurde (z. B. de Moor et al. 2020), waren unsere Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich der klimaskeptischen Accounts überraschender.

Zunächst einmal stellt die Identifizierung klimaskeptischer Akteur:innen an sich eine Herausforderung dar. Während Klimagerechtigkeits- und Umweltschutzgruppen klar um ihre Aktionen zur Unterstützung des Kampfes gegen den Klimawandel organisiert sind, agieren diejenigen, die Klimaschutzmaßnahmen behindern, deutlich weniger offen. In Europa wird Klimaskepsis heute mit rechtspopulistischen und rechtsextremen politischen Organisationen und Parteien in Verbindung gebracht. Innerhalb dieser Gruppen gibt es jedoch große Unterschiede, was die öffentliche Argumentation zum Thema Klimaskepsis betrifft (wie an anderer Stelle im Projekt ausführlich untersucht).

… und haben überraschend viel Vertrauen

Um eine genauere Liste klimaskeptischer Accounts zu erhalten, entschieden wir uns daher, Accounts aus diesem politischen Spektrum nicht generell als klimaskeptisch einzustufen, sondern die Interaktionsstärke und Distanz zwischen ihnen und unseren Klima-Accounts zu untersuchen. Diese Entscheidung orientierte sich an der Struktur von X, in der sich klare Muster isolierter Netzwerke um Klimapositionen erkennen lassen und die zudem gerade in den letzten Jahren als Raum antagonistischer Auseinandersetzungen bekannt geworden ist (Falkenberg et al. 2022). 

Um Klimaskeptiker:innen zu identifizieren, erschien es daher logisch zu untersuchen, welche Accounts auf Botschaften zu Klimagerechtigkeit und Umweltschutz reagiert hatten und welche am stärksten davon isoliert waren. Dies führte zu einer Liste von Accounts, die überwiegend von Politiker:innen aus dem rechtsextremen oder rechtspopulistischen Spektrum geführt wurden, wobei deutsche und polnische Accounts einen großen Anteil ausmachten. Obwohl diese Auswahl nicht perfekt ist, gehen wir dennoch davon aus, dass sie interessante Einblicke in das politische Vertrauen ermöglichen kann.

Unsere Analyse ergab, dass diese Accounts mehr Botschaften enthielten, die politisches Vertrauen zum Ausdruck brachten, und weniger, die politisches Misstrauen ausdrückten. Obwohl unsere Methode zur Ermittlung klimaskeptischer Accounts plausibel erscheint, da sie mit Argumenten aus der bestehenden Literatur übereinstimmt, widerspricht dieses Ergebnis unserer Vorannahme, dass Klimaskeptiker:innen politischen Akteur:innen misstrauen. Erklären lässt sich dies möglicherweise damit, dass die Accounts von Politiker:innen geführt wurden, die zum damaligen Zeitpunkt im Parlament saßen oder Regierungskoalitionen angehörten.

Polarisierung, politisches Vertrauen und Proteste

Anhand eines anderen Datensatzes untersuchten wir außerdem auch, wie politisches Vertrauen, Positionen zum Klimawandel und Entscheidungen über politische Partizipation zusammenhängen. Ausgehend von der bestehenden Literatur erwarten wir hier, dass Proteste vor allem an den beiden Extremen des Polarisierungsspektrums zum Klimawandel stattfinden. So ist bekannt, dass es eine Protestwelle für Klimagerechtigkeit gab, die sich in den Massendemonstrationen von Fridays for Future und dem zivilen Ungehorsam von Gruppen wie Extinction Rebellion äußerte und um 2019 ihren Höhepunkt erreichte. Wir wissen auch, dass es zunehmend Gegenwind gegen die Klimapolitik gibt, der mit Rechtspopulismus verbunden ist und sich unter anderem in Protesten gegen Umweltzonen, Steuern auf fossile Brennstoffe oder Naturschutzgesetze äußert.

Spiegelt sich dies auch in Umfragedaten wider? In gewisser Weise ja. Allerdings ist die Auffassung darüber, was politisches Vertrauen für Proteste bedeutet, uneinheitlich. So stellten wir bei der Auswertung der ActEU-Umfragedaten zunächst fest, dass Befragte, die Vertrauen in Parlamentsmitglieder äußerten, mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit an Protesten teilnahmen. Wenn wir dabei auf Akteur:innen mit polarisierten Ansichten zum Klimawandel fokussieren, verstärkt sich der Zusammenhang zwischen politischem Vertrauen und Protestbeteiligung sogar noch, und zwar sowohl bei Klimagerechtigkeits-Akteur:innen als auch bei Klimaskeptiker:innen (wobei die Klimapositionen in der Umfrage anders erfasst wurden, nämlich durch Fragen zur Haltung gegenüber klimaskeptischen und klimaleugnenden Aussagen und Akteur:innen). Unsere Analyse ergab zudem, dass sich Klimaskeptiker:innen mit einer höheren Wahrscheinlichkeit an Streiks beteiligten.

Protestierende misstrauen politischen Akteur:innen nicht immer

Die ActEU-Umfrage umfasste auch Vignettenexperimente zur Protestteilnahme, in denen den Befragten ein Szenario präsentiert wurde, in dem sie eine Klimapolitik ablehnen. Dabei zeigte sich, dass politisches Misstrauen im allgemeinen Zusammenhang zwischen Polarisierung, politischem Vertrauen und Protest eine wichtigere Rolle spielt: Misstrauische Befragte gaben eher an, dass sie an einer friedlichen Demonstration oder sogar an der Besetzung eines Parlamentsgebäudes (einer kontroverseren Option) teilnehmen würden. 

Auf den ersten Blick erweckt dies den Anschein, als würden misstrauische Befragte eher gegen die Klimapolitik protestieren. Allerdings legen die Ergebnisse unserer Social-Media-Analyse nahe, dass es sich hier eher um Klimagerechtigkeitsproteste handelt, die weitreichendere Veränderungen fordern, weniger um Proteste zur Verhinderung von Klimaschutzmaßnahmen. Denn wie wir festgestellt haben, sind Accounts von Klimagerechtigkeitsaktivist:innen politisch misstrauischer als viele klimaskeptische Accounts.

Insgesamt deutet dies darauf hin, dass Protestierende – ob Klimaskeptiker:innen oder Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit – nicht zwangsläufig immer Misstrauen gegenüber politischen Akteur:innen hegen. Die Datenlage ist deutlich komplexer. Dies widerspricht einigen klassischen wissenschaftlichen Theorien zum Zusammenhang zwischen Protest und Misstrauen, die Proteste jenen zuschreiben, die ein starkes Gefühl der Benachteiligung und damit einhergehend Misstrauen gegenüber politischen Akteur:innen empfinden. Unsere Ergebnisse legen stattdessen ein differenzierteres Bild nahe, das sich eher mit Theorien politischer Opportunität deckt. Viele Proteste nutzen einen spezifischen politischen Kontext, um Forderungen zu erheben. Sie folgen deshalb keinem einheitlichen Muster oder Merkmalen, und es erscheint unangemessen, sie generell als bloße Antipolitik oder radikale Randerscheinung abzutun.

Was bedeutet das für die EU-Klimapolitik?

Unsere Forschungsergebnisse erlauben noch keine endgültigen Aussagen, sie untermauern aber differenzierte Sichtweisen in der Forschung zu sozialen Bewegungen und Klimawandel. Sowohl Klimaskeptiker:innen als auch Akteur:innen der Klimagerechtigkeitsbewegung protestieren, und die Gründe dafür sind vielschichtig.

Betrachtet man die jüngsten, auf den ersten Blick klimaskeptischen Proteste, die später von rechtsgerichteten politischen Kräften vereinnahmt wurden, so lassen sich dort auch Argumente finden, die eigentlich auf Klimagerechtigkeit abzielen. Beispielsweise wurden bei den Protesten der „Gelbwesten“ oder bei den Bauernprotesten von 2024 auch Forderungen gestellt, in denen es um Verteilungsgerechtigkeit bei der Abkehr von einer auf fossilen Brennstoffen basierenden Wirtschaft ging (der sogenannten Just Transition): Die Proteste drehten sich ebenso sehr um die Frage, wer die Kosten tragen soll, wie um Klimaskepsis selbst.

Bei den Protesten für Klimagerechtigkeit wiederum lassen sich klare Forderungen nach einem Systemwandel durch die Einführung von Mechanismen partizipativer Demokratie in Form von Bürgerversammlungen finden. Teilweise überschneiden sich diese Forderungen auch: So forderten beispielsweise auch die Gelbwesten-Proteste demokratische Mechanismen und trugen zur französischen „Grand Débat“ bei (Ehs and Mokre 2020), und die Forderung, dass Eliten auf „das Volk“ hören sollen, ist auch bei Populist:innen verbreitet.

Eingehen auf differenzierte Protestforderungen kann Vertrauen bilden

Für die EU-Klimapolitik ist es deshalb wichtig, die differenzierte Natur von Protestforderungen zu berücksichtigen. Neben anderen Formen politischer Forderungen spielten auch Proteste in Europa schon immer eine Rolle, um politische Veränderungen voranzutreiben. Entscheidend ist, wie die Machthabenden damit umgehen.

Auf Proteste einzugehen, indem man echte Inklusionsmechanismen anbietet, und Versuchen der Mitgliedstaaten zur Repressionen von Klimagerechtigkeitsprotesten entschlossen entgegenzutreten, könnte für die EU ein Schlüssel zur Stärkung ihrer Legitimität und demokratischen Glaubwürdigkeit sein. Dies erscheint strategisch umso sinnvoller, als klimaskeptische Proteste mit Verbindungen zu rechtspopulistischen Akteur:innen die EU-Politik und die Macht der EU infrage stellen. Klimagerechtigkeitsproteste hingegen stimmen eher mit den Ambitionen der EU auf eine globale Führungsrolle im Umweltschutz ein, haben sich zuletzt aber immer seltener direkt an die EU gewandt, da sie diese nicht als wirksame Akteurin für echten Wandel wahrnehmen (della Porta, Parks und Portos 2024). Dies ist möglicherweise der Grund, weshalb Befürworter:innen von Klimagerechtigkeit zunehmend das Vertrauen in die Politik verloren haben.

Louisa Parks ist Professorin für Politische Soziologie and der Universität Trient.

Dieser Artikel basiert auf zwei von ActEU veröffentlichten Berichten, dem „Report on variation in political trust across policy areas of climate change, migration and gender“ und dem „Report describing the relationships between trust and participation within the fields of immigration and climate change on the basis of web-scraped data and survey experiments“. Beide sind im November 2025 erschienen.

Am 5. Februar 2026 findet in Brüssel die Abschlusskonferenz des Projekts ActEU statt. Weitere Informationen und Anmeldung hier.

Wirtschaftliche Not mindert das Vertrauen in die Politik [DE/EN] ● Henrik Serup Christensen und Janette Huttunen Mehrebenen-Demokratie und Vertrauen in Europa: die Rolle der subnationalen Ebene [DE/EN] ● Felix-Christopher von Nostitz Aus dem Takt? Der schwierige Wahltanz der EU [DE/EN] ● Alex Hartland, Daniela Braun, Giuseppe Carteny, Rosa M. Navarrete und Ann-Kathrin Reinl Was hat Vertrauen damit zu tun? Politisches Vertrauen, polarisierte Meinungen und Klimaproteste in Europa [DE/EN] ● Louisa Parks

Übersetzung: Manuel Müller.
Bilder: Klimaprotest: Nick Wood [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0], via Flickr; Porträt Louisa Parks: privat [alle Rechte vorbehalten].

What’s trust got to do with it? Political trust, polarized opinions and climate protest in Europe

Deutsch

By Louisa Parks

The Horizon Europe project Activating European Citizens’ Trust in Times of Crisis and Polarisation (ActEU) examines questions of political trust and democratic legitimacy in Europe. This article is part of a series in which ActEU researchers present their findings.

“Protesters – whether they are climate sceptics or pro climate justice – are not necessarily always distrustful of political actors.”

Existing scholarship has shown that European citizens’ views about climate change are increasingly polarised, but not between climate believers and climate denialists (i.e. those that do and do not believe in the existence of human-driven climate change). In Europe the picture is more nuanced. While the vast majority of Europeans accept the existence of human-driven climate change, we do still disagree in important ways over policies: their type, extent, speed, and, crucially, costs and who should pay (Caldwell, Cohen, and Vivyan 2024).

Yet this view is missing in research looking at how polarization on climate change relates to political participation choices and political trust. Usually, it is assumed that environmentalists are more trustful of political actors, and climate sceptics less so. But do these assumptions still hold if we look at climate polarization using a policy lens, rather than a believers-vs-denialists lens? And what does this mean for political participation choices, especially the choice to engage in protest?

For the ActEU project, we thus investigated these interrelationships on the basis of a different operationalisation of polarization that is closer to what we know about citizens’ views on climate change in Europe. Rather than deniers (a small minority) vs. believers (a broad and varied majority), we looked instead at political trust and participation choices amongst supporters of climate justice on the one hand, and climate sceptics on the other.

Climate sceptics vs climate justice actors

For our purposes, climate scepticism groups denialists, but also those who question whether climate change is harmful or human-driven, or question the need for climate change to be responded to through policies.

To define the opposite pole, we follow work on environmental and climate justice. Supporters of climate justice are more than advocates for strong climate action. They underline the ways in which the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental crises are experienced to different degrees according to wealth, class, gender, ethnicity, geography, and more. They thus advocate for holistic approaches to climate change as a social justice issue, and challenge dominant environmental political discourses that shape action in Europe including the European Green Deal (Machin 2025). This often amounts to calls for system change involving more substantive democratic participation elements.

In this article, I discuss some preliminary findings about polarized actors – climate justice actors and climate sceptics – and their political trust and participation choices, drawing on a first exploration of social media data from X collected during the project. This was exploratory work on a fairly limited sample of accounts in European countries. I then offer some reflections about what the findings might mean for EU politics and democracy.

Political distrust among polarized actors

To start looking at political trust among climate justice and climate sceptic actors, we identified X accounts held by environmentalist groups, then researched these to identify those among them that advocate for climate justice. We then looked at the machine analysis of their messages and how these had been tagged as expressing political trust or political distrust.

A first point of interest to note is that when we looked at the whole group of environmentalist accounts including both more ‘mainstream’ groups and climate justice groups, we found no clear trends about political trust or distrust. In other words, simply being an environmentalist group doesn’t seem to carry and implications about political trust.

Climate justice actors express less trust than mainstream groups

However, if we separate this broader group into mainstream and climate justice groups, a trend emerges. Mainstream groups (for example Bird Life groups, WWF, or the World Water Council) write messages that express political trust, for example by describing political actors as honest, competent, and public-oriented. What’s more, these mainstream groups write fewer messages that express political distrust, presenting political actors as dishonest or incompetent. (The way the ActEU project conceptualises trust uses specific descriptions for trust and distrust, rather than using the more common approach where trust is measured, but distrust is seen as just the absence of trust).

Climate justice groups (like Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, or Last Generation), on the other hand, are less likely to write messages expressing trust in political actors, and more likely to write messages describing political actors as dishonest and incompetent. Approaching polarization on climate change issues in Europe using climate justice and climate sceptic groups thus seems to be on the right track: using this approach, we can identify findings about political distrust among supporters for far-reaching action on climate issues that would be obscured by considering all environmentalist groups together.

Climate sceptics are difficult to identify – and surprisingly trustful

While these findings on political trust among climate justice and mainstream environmentalist groups confirm what is already suggested in the literature (e.g. de Moor et al. 2020), what we found when looking at climate sceptic accounts was more surprising.

First, there are challenges in identifying climate sceptic actors. While climate justice and environmentalist groups are clearly organised around their actions in support of the fight against climate change, those acting to obstruct action on climate change are much less overt. In Europe today, climate scepticism has been found to be linked to right-wing populist and far-right political organisations and parties. Yet among these, there is great variation on the public reasoning about climate scepticism (as investigated in-depth elsewhere in the project).

To get a more accurate list of climate sceptic accounts, we thus decided that rather than assuming accounts from this part of the political spectrum to be climate sceptic, we would look at levels of interaction and distance between them and our climate accounts. This was decided in line with the architecture of X, which shows clear patterns of isolated networks around climate positions as well as being known as a space of antagonistic exchange, particularly in recent years (Falkenberg et al 2022). To find climate sceptics, it thus seemed logical to look at whether they had reacted to climate justice and environmentalist messages, as well as those most isolated from them. This left us with a list of accounts that were mostly held by far or populist right politicians, rather skewed to German and Polish accounts. Though far from perfect, we still thought the findings about political trust could provide interesting insights.

What our analysis showed was that these accounts had more messages expressing political trust, and fewer expressing political distrust. So, while our method of finding climate sceptic accounts seems sound in that it tallies with arguments in existing literature, our assumption that climate sceptics are distrustful of political actors is challenged. It may be that this is due to the accounts being held by politicians that were in parliament or governing coalitions at the time.

Polarization, political trust, and protest

Using different data, we also looked at how political trust, positions on climate change, and decisions about political participation are interrelated. Here, what we expect based on existing literature is that protest is linked to both ends of the climate change polarization spectrum. We know that there has been a protest wave around climate justice with the mass demonstrations of Fridays for Future and the civil disobedience of groups such as Extinction Rebellion, peaking around 2019. We also know that there has been rising backlash to climate policy, linked to the populist right, with protests around low emission zones, fossil fuel taxes, and nature protection laws to name but a few.

Is this reflected in survey data? In some ways it is, though the view on what political trust means for protest is mixed. When we looked at the data from the ActEU survey, we found first that respondents expressing trust in members of parliament were more likely to have taken part in protests. When we added polarized views on climate change, the link between political trust and protest participation appeared stronger and covered both climate justice and climate sceptic-oriented positions (though these were captured in a different way in the survey, through questions about the respondent’s opinions on climate sceptic and denialist positions and actors). Our analysis also revealed a higher likelihood for climate sceptics to take part in strikes.

Protesters are not always distrustful of political actors

The ActEU survey also included vignette experiments about protest participation where the respondent is given a scenario in which they are opposed to a climate policy. Here, we found that political distrust was more important in the general relationship between polarization, political trust, and protest. Distrustful respondents were more likely to say they would join a peaceful demonstration or even an occupation of a parliament building (a more contentious option). While it might appear that distrustful respondents are thus protesting against climate policies, when we consider the findings from our social media analysis it could well be that here we are talking about climate justice protests demanding more far-reaching change rather than climate obstructionism, since we found that climate justice accounts are more politically distrustful than many climate sceptic ones.

What this suggests overall is that protesters – whether they are climate sceptics or pro climate justice – are not necessarily always distrustful of political actors. The evidence is much more mixed. This belies some classical academic theories about the link between protest and distrust which attributes the act of protest to those that feel a strong sense of grievance and thus distrust in political actors. Instead, our findings suggest something more nuanced in line with theories around political opportunity. Many protests are about taking advantage of a specific political context to make a claim. There is thus no single pattern or quality to protest, and dismissing it as mere anti-politics or radical flank appears unwise.

What does this mean for EU climate politics?

Our research is far from definitive but bolsters nuanced views in work on social movements and climate change. Both climate sceptics and climate justice actors protest, and there are complex reasons for that.

If we consider recent apparently climate sceptic protests, later captured by right-wing political forces, we can find arguments that concern climate justice. For example, the yellow vests protests and the farmers protests of 2024 contain claims about distributive justice in the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy (the Just Transition): they are about who should bear costs as well as about climate scepticism.

In climate justice protests, on the other hand, we find clear demands about system change through the addition of mechanisms for participatory democracy in the form of citizens’ assemblies. Sometimes these claims overlap: for example, the yellow vests protests also called for democratic mechanisms, and fed into France’s ‘Grand Débat’ (Ehs and Mokre 2020), while populists also call for elites to listen to ‘the people’.

EU responsiveness to nuanced protest claims can help rebuild trust

Thus, it is important for EU climate politics to take the nuanced nature of protest claims into account. Protest, along with other forms of political claims-making, has always driven change in Europe, and how powers respond to protest has clear consequences.

For the EU, responsiveness to protest through genuine mechanisms of inclusion, and a strong stance against member state moves to repress climate justice protests, could be one key to build legitimacy and democratic credentials. This seems all the more strategic given that more climate sceptic protests linked with right wing populist actors challenge EU policies and the EU’s power, while climate justice protests that are more in line with the EU’s ambitions as a global environmental leader have progressively ceased to address the EU, seeing it as an ineffective actor for real change (della Porta, Parks, and Portos 2024). This is, perhaps, what has driven distrust in politics for supporters of climate justice.

Louisa Parks is Professor of Political Sociology at the Università di Trento, School of International Studies and Department of Sociology and Social Research.

This article is based on the ActEU “Report on variation in political trust across policy areas of climate change, migration and gender” and the ActEU “Report describing the relationships between trust and participation within the fields of immigration and climate change on the basis of web-scraped data and survey experiments”, both published in November 2025.

The final conference of the ActEU project will take place in Brussels on 5 February 2026. Click here for more information and to register.

Economic deprivation reduces political trust [DE/EN] ● Henrik Serup Christensen and Janette Huttunen Multi-level democracy and political trust in Europe: The role of the subnational level [DE/EN] ● Felix-Christopher von Nostitz Out of step? The EU’s difficult election dance [DE/EN] ● Alex Hartland, Daniela Braun, Giuseppe Carteny, Rosa M. Navarrete, and Ann-Kathrin Reinl What’s trust got to do with it? Political trust, polarized opinions and climate protest in Europe [DE/EN] ● Louisa Parks

Pictures: Climate protest: Nick Wood [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0], via Flickr; portrait Louisa Parks: private [all rights reserved].

EU to go – Zwischen Abhängigkeit und Resilienz: Europa im Rohstoffdilemma

In der Podcastserie „EU to go – Der Podcast für Europapolitik“ präsentiert das Jacques Delors Centre kompakte Hintergründe zur Europapolitik. Einmal im Monat analysieren Moderatorin Thu Nguyen und ihre Gäste in 20 bis 30 Minuten ein aktuelles Thema.

„EU to go – Der Podcast für Europapolitik“ erscheint hier im Rahmen einer Kooperation mit dem Jacques Delors Centre. Er ist auch auf der Homepage des Jacques Delors Centre selbst sowie auf allen bekannten Podcast-Kanälen zu finden.

Kritische Rohstoffe stehen zunehmend im Zentrum europäischer Wirtschafts- und Sicherheitspolitik. Seltene Erden, Lithium, Graphit oder Nickel entscheiden darüber, ob Batterien gebaut, Windräder betrieben oder Verteidigungssysteme einsatzfähig bleiben. Doch entlang der gesamten Wertschöpfungskette ist Europa stark abhängig – vor allem von China, das zentrale Verarbeitungsschritte und Schlüsseltechnologien dominiert.

In dieser Folge von EU to go spricht Thu Nguyen mit Arthur Leichthammer, Policy Fellow und Experte für Geoökonomie, über Europas strategische Verwundbarkeit im Rohstoffbereich. Ausgangspunkt ist die geopolitische Zuspitzung rund um Chinas jüngste Exportkontrollen – und die wachsende Erkenntnis, dass wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeiten längst als politisches Machtinstrument genutzt werden.

Gemeinsam analysieren sie, wo Europas größte Schwachstellen liegen, warum die Weiterverarbeitung der eigentliche Engpass ist und weshalb der Critical Raw Materials Act bislang hinter seinen Ambitionen zurückbleibt. Im Fokus steht zudem die neue EU-Initiative ReSourceEU: Kann sie den Schritt von Zielrhetorik zur praktischen Umsetzung schaffen? Reichen Koordination und De-Risking aus, um Investitionen in Verarbeitung, Recycling und resilientere Lieferketten auszulösen?

Die Folge beleuchtet außerdem den globalen Wettbewerb mit den USA und China, die Rolle Afrikas als strategischer Partner – und die sicherheitspolitischen Folgen für Europas Verteidigungsfähigkeit. Klar wird: Europas Rohstoffabhängigkeit ist kein langfristiges Zukunftsrisiko, sondern eine akute strategische Herausforderung.

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

Deutsch

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].