The 2024 European Parliament elections will see a major shift to the right in many countries, with populist radical right parties gaining votes and seats across the EU, and centre-left and green parties losing votes and seats.
Anti-European populists are likely to top the polls in nine member states (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia) and come second or third in a further nine countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden).
According to our forecast, almost half the seats will be held by MEPs outside the “super grand coalition” of the three centrist groups.
Inside the European Parliament, a populist right coalition of Christian democrats, conservatives, and radical right MEPs could emerge with a majority for the first time.
This ‘sharp right turn’ is likely to have significant consequences for European-level policies, which will affect the foreign policy choices that the EU can make, particularly on environmental issues, where the new majority is likely to oppose ambitious EU action to tackle climate change.
Far-right parties are becoming increasingly dominant in national settings across many EU capitals. Whether in election results, such as the success of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) in the Dutch general election in November, or in their ability to set the agenda from the opposition – such as the National Rally’s support for France’s regressive immigration bill in December – the far right played an important role in shaping European politics in 2023. 2024 is likely to see a continuation of this trend not only in national politics, but also at the European level, with early polls suggesting a more right-leaning European Parliament will emerge after the June 2024 European Parliament elections.
To determine how significant this shift could be and the effect it could have on the European Union’s policies and those of national governments, we collected the most recent opinion polls in every EU member state and applied a statistical model of the performance of national parties in previous European Parliament elections, building on a model we developed and used for the 2009, 2014, and 2019 elections.
The results indicate that the European Parliament will likely take a sharp turn to the right after June 2024. While the parliament is not the most significant EU institution when it comes to foreign policy, the way in which the political groups align after the elections, and the impact that these elections have on national debates in member states, will have significant implications for the European Commission’s and Council’s ability to make foreign policy choices, most notably in implementing the next phase of the European Green Deal.
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About the authors
Kevin Cunningham is a lecturer in politics, political strategist, and pollster. He has worked for a number of political parties, most notably leading the targeting and analytics for UK Labour.
Simon Hix is Stein Rokkan chair in comparative politics at the European University Institute in Florence. He was previously vice-president of the London School of Economics and the inaugural Harold Laski chair in political science at LSE.
Susi Dennison is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the director of ECFR’s European Power programme.
Imogen Learmonth is a researcher and programme manager at Datapraxis, an organisationthat provides strategic advice, public opinion research, and modelling and analysis services to political parties, non-profit organisations, media, and research institutes across Europe