Far-right gains in EU Parliament lead Macron to call snap elections

Far-right parties made big gains in the European Parliament in election results that rattled the traditional powers and made French President Emmanuel Macron call snap legislative elections.

Millions of Europeans voted for candidates to serve five-year terms in a new European Parliament, the legislative branch of the 27-member trade bloc.

Provisional results from the voting that ended on Sunday showed the Christian Democrats would have 189 seats, up 13, the Social Democrats 135, down 4 and the pro-business Renew group 83, down 19. The Greens slumped to 53, down 18.

Macron’s party suffered a heavy defeat from the far-right National Rally party, while in Germany support for Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats sank to a projected 14 percent, behind the extreme-right Alternative for Germany, which surged into second place.

Here is the latest on EU election results.

Italy

Initial projections based on 18 percent of votes counted in Italy indicate Premier Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party has won the largest percentage of votes in the European parliamentary elections.

The projection released by public broadcaster RAI puts Brothers of Italy as the most popular party with 28.5 percent of the vote. At the same time, the centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) was second with 23.7 percent.

The other main opposition party, the 5-Star Movement, won 10.5 percent, while Forza Italia, founded by late premier Silvio Berlusconi, was fourth with 10 percent, followed by the far-right League at 8.3 percent.

Hungary

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist party appeared set to take the most votes in Sunday’s European Parliament elections, a race that pitted the long-serving leader against a new challenger that has upended Orban’s grip on Hungarian politics in recent months.

With 55 percent of votes counted, Orbán’s Fidesz party stood at 43 percent of the vote, enough to send 11 delegates of Hungary’s 21 total seats in the European Union’s legislature.

While Fidesz took a plurality of votes, it was down nearly 10 percentage points from its support in the 2019 EU elections and looked set to lose two seats in what was widely seen as a referendum on Orban’s popularity.

Fidesz has dominated Hungarian politics since 2010.

Spain

Spain's leading opposition conservatives pulled ahead of the governing Socialists in the European Union’s parliamentary elections, with the far-right making significant gains amid the surprise appearance of a new extremist party led by a social media influencer.

With 99 percent of votes counted, the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) had 34 percent, four percentage points more than the centre-left Socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. That translated into 22 seats for the conservatives, nine more than in the previous European election, and 20 for the Socialists.

Spain has the fourth largest number of parliamentary seats allocated in the EU’s assembly: 61 out of 720.

The results were a significant improvement for the PP conservatives, who had likened the European vote to a referendum on Sanchez’s administration. But the biggest gains were on the far right of the political spectrum.

Czech Republic

The centrist opposition ANO (YES) movement led by former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis has won the European Parliament election in the Czech Republic.

Euroskeptic Babis defeated the centre-right Together coalition that consists of three partners in the Czech governing coalition: the conservative Civic Democratic Party of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Christian Democrats and the liberal-conservative TOP 09 party.

ANO won 26 percent of the votes, for seven seats, while Together claimed 22 percent, for six seats.

Netherlands

Near complete Dutch results confirmed on Sunday night that Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigration Party for Freedom was the biggest winner in elections for the European Union parliament.

Wilders’ party won six seats, up from one in the last European parliament, according to a nearly complete count of the Dutch vote, national broadcaster NOS reported. That is one seat less than projected by an exit poll after the Dutch voted Thursday.

That one seat difference did not dampen Wilders’ delight. “Still the very biggest winner with five more seats!” he wrote on social media platform X.

Slovakia

The major opposition Progressive Slovakia has claimed victory in the European Parliament elections in Slovakia, topping the leftist Smer (Direction) party of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The vote took place just weeks after Fico survived an assassination attempt.

Progressive Slovakia, a liberal and pro-Western group, won 27.8 percent of the vote, for six parliamentary seats.

Smer, which refuses to send any arms to Ukraine to face Russia's invasion and is critical of mainstream European policies, followed with 24.8%, for five seats.

Greece

Near complete results in Greece show the governing centre-right New Democracy party comfortably ahead in the EU Parliamentary election with just under 28 percent of the vote but with a poorer showing than the 33 percent it won in the previous election which the party leadership had set as a bar for Sunday's poll.

Results from 95 percent of polling precincts showed that the left-wing main opposition SYRIZA also lost ground, polling just below 15 percent, down from nearly 24 percent in 2019.

Socialist PASOK scored just under 13 percent, up from nearly 8 percent. Hard-right populist Greek Solution, which also saw a rise in its popularity to 9.5 percent from 4 percent, is the largest of three far-right parties to send representatives to the European Parliament, alongside the ultra-religious Niki with 4 percent and Voice of Reason with 3 percent.

Greek Administration of Southern Cyprus

The broadcaster of the Greek Cypriot Administration says near-complete results show the far-right ELAM party has managed to clinch one of six seats allotted to the country in the European Parliament.

It’s the first time that the far-right party, founded in 2008, has earned a seat in the European Parliament. ELAM’s strident polemics against large numbers of migrants who have reached GCA in recent years have increasingly resonated with voters and have given the party a steady rise in support.

With almost 85 percent of the vote counted, ELAM has garnered just over 11 percent, the state broadcaster said.

Poland

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has declared victory after an exit poll showed a decisive victory for his centrist pro-EU party.

The exit poll by Ipsos showed over 38 percent of votes going to his Civic Coalition. According to the poll, the result was a disappointing showing for Law and Justice, the national conservative party that governed Poland from 2015-23. The poll showed it with nearly 34 percent.

The far-right Confederation party was in third place in the exit poll, winning nearly 12 percent for a strong showing.

Croatia

Exit polls in Croatia project the ruling conservatives to win the most votes in the EU election, followed by the main centre-left opposition party. A newcomer far-right party also won a seat for the first time.

The Croatian Democratic Union of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic won 33.7 percent of the vote, or six seats, while the Social Democratic Party won 27.8 percent, or four seats, according to the exit poll conducted by the Ipsos polling agency and broadcast by the state HRT television.

The report said that the far-right Homeland Movement won 8.6 percent, or one seat. The party is part of the coalition government in Croatia after emerging as kingmaker at a recent parliamentary election. The Liberal We Can group won 5.4 percent, which is also one seat.

Bulgaria

Exit polls in Bulgaria indicate the GERB centre-right party of three-time Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is the likely winner of the country's parliamentary vote as well as the election for the European Parliament.

The exit poll conducted by Gallup International showed the GERB party with 26 percent, apparently edging out the reformist coalition between the We Continue the Change party and right-wing Democratic Bulgaria by a margin of over 10 percentage points in both votes. Borissov held the premiership three times between 2009 and 2021.