Right-wing and Eurosceptic parties will gain ground in the next European elections at the expense of centrist parties, according to an analysis of existing polls by POLITICO, cited by News.ro.

Elections to the European Parliament are scheduled for June 6-9, 2024.

If the election were held today, the right-wing European Party of Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) would be the third-largest group in the European Parliament – along with the centrist Renew group – with 89 seats. This would represent a huge increase of 23 seats for the ECR compared to the 2019 elections.

The once Eurosceptic party is the European political family of Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party. In Poland, for its part, parliamentary elections will be held this autumn, with PiS on the cusp of an electoral advantage but in a close battle with the centrist liberals of the Civic Platform (PO).

However, European polls show that much of the boost the ECR would register in the European Parliament elections would actually come from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party, although the prime minister has distanced herself from her neo-Nazis. past formation.

Similarly, the far-right group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy (ID), would make significant gains with 77 seats — a 15-seat increase from the current legislature, determined by the recent rise in the Alternative for Germany (AfD) polls.

The expected shift to the right reflects a broader trend in national elections in Europe, where voters in countries such as Italy, Finland and Greece are increasingly favoring more conservative and hard-right parties.

However, a POLITICO analysis shows that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) will retain its seat as the largest group in parliament, despite an expected loss of 12 seats, bringing it to 165 seats.

The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group would even gain two seats, maintaining its position as the second group in the European Parliament with 145 seats.

According to the analysis, the Renew group would fall 12 places, sharing third place with ECR.

This means that the traditional grand coalition of EPP, S&D and Renew, which spans the political spectrum from centre-left to centre-right, will retain its clear majority in the face of a potential new right-wing alliance of EPP, ECR and Renew. .

However, the EPP has recently shown its willingness to work with the ECR by teaming up with the group to oppose Green Deal legislation.

The biggest losers in the election were the Greens, who would retain just 48 seats, losing 24 seats, while the Left Group would gain eight seats but remain the smallest group in parliament with 45 seats.

Europeans will go to the polls next year on June 6-9 to elect 705 MEPs to represent them in Brussels. The number of MEPs will increase to 720 in the 2024 election, but since the changes still need to be formally approved by the European Council and Parliament itself, poll estimates are based on a scenario of 705 seats, POLITICO said.

These seat projections are based on national polls of voting intentions and were aggregated by POLITICO, taking into account each country’s current parliamentary seat distribution system. POLITICO Research also consulted with experts to assign new non-affiliated MEPs to their likely groups. (News.ro)