The main pro-European parties (EPP, social democrats and Alde's liberals) would leave 11% on the field, which however would only partially be collected by the populist eurosceptics (collected by the acronyms Efdd, Enf and Ecr), who together would earn 4%. And the centrist formations, on the other hand, would rise in importance. In summary, these are the new political balances that could emerge in next year's European elections, according to a simulation by the Istituto Cattaneo. To date, therefore, there would be no "black wave", unlike the indications that have come, for example, from the last elections in Austria, in Italy, and from what is happening in the countries of the famous Visegrad bloc (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic , Slovakia). Without forgetting the growing sovereignty that has emerged in Germany itself or in France, where in the 2017 elections Macron went to the ballot with Marine Le Pen.
Indeed, one of the three parties most represented today in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, namely the liberals of Alde, is even expected to grow very slightly: according to the Istituto Cattaneo, it should therefore exceed 10% of consensus and obtain 72 seats, five more of the current 67. It will not go as well for the popular (centre-right formation to which Forza Italia also belongs), currently the first party which, however, in 10 months would lose 37 seats, or 6,5% of the votes. According to this projection, it would be the most significant flop, demonstrating that not only is no "black wave" foreseen, but not even that the hearts of European citizens beat so to the right. In fact, the S&D of the European Social Democrats will lose less, but still 4,5%, a formation that represents the entire continental centre-left, from the Pd to the Spanish Psoe, from the French socialists (including the Macronians) to the German Spd. For them, the seats would go from the current 169 to 144, making them once again – and firmly – the second group in Strasbourg.
However, it is unlikely that the EPP and the S&D can together have a majority, so unlike in the past, the support of the liberal group (ALDE) could therefore become necessary to maintain the parliamentary agreement between the major pro-European forces. On the other hand, as expected but – according to Cattaneo – not so much as to conquer the Strasbourg assembly, the so-called Eurosceptic or sovereignist forces are growing. The EFDD (Europe of freedom and direct democracy), which currently has its most politically representative components in the 5 Star Movement and in Alternative for Germany (as well as in Nigel Farage's UKIP, here excluded from the calculation due to Brexit) and which in the 2009-2014 legislature also had the Northern League among its members, would grow by 3,2% compared to 2014. Enf (Europe of nations and freedom) instead, which includes, among others, the Rassemblement national of Le Pen, precisely the League of Salvini, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Belgian Vlaams Belangwould grow by 2,2%.
However, the sovereignist sum would give 4%, given that the group, also Eurosceptic in orientation, of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) - today made up of the English Conservatives, the Polish Law and Justice and various formations from Central and Eastern Europe as well as by the main far-right parties in the Nordic countries (the Finns' Party, the Danish People's Party and, more recently, the Sweden Democrats) – it loses 1 percentage point from the current 8 to 7% of the seats predicted by the simulation. According to the estimates of the Istituto Cattaneo, however, there is a centrist wind in the air: of the new formations that could land in Strasbourg, 41% are oriented to the center and 20% to the left.
