The results of the European elections have arrived and while Salvini celebrates his primacy in Italy, in Brussels we sum up the data from the 28 Member States to try to understand what will be the face of the new European Parliament.
How to widely expected, it will be a fragmented Parliament, where the two big traditional parties, the European People's Party (EPP, centre-right) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists (S&D, centre-left) will not be able to govern alone as happened in the past. On the other side of the fence, however, a reflection needs to be made: if individually the sovereign parties that threatened to subvert the EU status quo have achieved good results especially in Italy with Salvini, in France with Le Pen, and in Hungary with Orban, aggregate data tell us that the European sovereign tsunami has been contained thanks above all to the rise of the Greens and Liberals, who surprised everyone in both Germany and France.
THE RESULTS OF “TRADITIONAL” PARTIES
The European People's Party lost 39 seats, going from 219 in 2014 to 180 today. However, the result is still in doubt because to understand how many seats there will be, we will have to wait to see what will be the fate of Fidesz, the party of Premier Viktor Orban, which obtained 52,33% of the preferences in Hungary, equal to 13 seats. In fact, the hypothesis of expulsion hangs over the Hungarians. Fidesz is currently suspended by the conservative group due to some anti-European election posters and could move to the ENL of Salvini and Le Pen, a loss which however could cost the EPP dearly in terms of the majority. We recall that the group also includes other major European centre-right parties such as the German Christian Democratic Union (Angela Merkel's party, to be clear), the French Republicans, the Spanish People's Party.
Down also the socialists, to which the Democratic Party adheres, the German Social Democrats, the Spanish Socialists. The S&D, which represents the traditional centre-left, has gone from 191 seats five years ago to 146 today. So doing a sum the traditional alliance between the EPP and the S&D stops at 326 seats, 50 less than the majority.
To govern, therefore, the two groups will need to find a third ally. The more likely it is ALDE, pro-European group, liberal and in favor of greater economic integration, which obtained the best result in its history, rising from 69 to 109 seats. It should be emphasized, however, that the votes obtained in France by da also weigh on the result Working, the party of President Emmanuel Macron (second party with 22,3%), which will be able to guarantee the liberal faction around twenty invaluable seats. In Alde, he should have joined too + Europe, which however did not exceed the threshold of 4%, stopping at 3,1%.
Growing too the Greens which, thanks to the results obtained in Belgium, France, Germany and Ireland, reach 69 seats (from 52) and are a candidate to become the majority. Once again Italy is going against the trend, given that Green Europe has stopped at 2,3% and therefore will not be able to enter Parliament.
GUE/NGL, the "leftmost" left, instead reaches 39 seats (there is no The Italian Left, under the barrier).
THE RESULTS OF THE SOVEREIGNISTS
Let's start with the sovereign and far-right group par excellence, the ENL into which Matteo Salvini's League merges, Rassemblement National by Marine Le Pen (France), Alternative für Deutschland (AFD, Germany), FPÖ (Austria), Partij voor de vrijheid (Netherlands). The boom of Salvini in Italy and Le Pen in France was counterbalanced by below-expected results in Germany, Holland and Austria, where the three parties in government managed to curb those of the ultra-right. ENL will be able to count on 58 seats (there were 36 before the elections) equal to 7,7%. There has therefore been a substantial improvement, but the possibility of forming a majority, forming a common front with the other groups with which it shares similar ideas, seems rather utopian.
THEECR, sovereign group, Eurosceptic and opposed to European integration, which includes the Polish right and the British Conservatives and, for our country, Brothers of Italy it fell from 79 to 59 seats.
However, the future of theEFDD extension (54 seats) and, with it, that of the 5 Star Movement. The group was led byUKIP of Brexiter Nigel Farage, who however no longer exists. In his place, the Eurosceptic leader created the Brexit Party, which outperformed everyone in the UK by going over 30%. To date it is not yet clear whether a new group will form, again led by Farage, or if given the probable short stay of the British in the EU, the team will dissolve definitively. At this juncture, the fate of the 5 Star Movement is not even known, which in the last legislature had joined the EFDD and which before the elections had declared its intention to form a new group together with other small parties. The problem is that the parties with which the pentastellati would have wanted to ally themselves – the anti-abortion and homophobic Polish extreme-right of Kukiz'15, led by Pawel Kukiz, the anti-euro and anti-NATO Croatians of Zivi Zid, led by Ivan Sinčić, the Greek party Akkel - will struggle to enter Parliament, therefore the M5S could be forced to choose a different path.
THE NEW EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
As mentioned, the popular and socialists, whose alliance led Parliament in the five-year period 2014-2019, will need new life to form the majority. In addition to ALDE, there are chances that the Greens will also join. However, it must be considered that, in both cases, the requests that these groups will formalize to guarantee their support will be heavy: in exchange they could want the presidency of some key commissions or even that of the European Parliament, while that of the Commission will be dictated by the EPP ( the choice will most likely fall on the German Max Weber)
On the other hand, it is very difficult to think that Popolari and socialists will make a pact with the other three Eurosceptic forces, also because by incorporating the ENL or the ERC, the numbers for the majority would not exist anyway.
