A new Europe Elects projection published on Wednesday says the three parties that have formed a parliamentary majority in the European Parliament since its creation would fail to secure one for the first time. The centre-right European People's Party, the centrist Renew Europe, and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats are now projected to fall short, a neat little reminder that the Brussels apparatus can lose its grip without losing its appetite for control.
The Centre's Grip Weakens
Europe Elects drew on voting intentions from each EU member state and modelled seat allocations based on each country's electoral law. The result is a projection that shows Europe's mainstream political forces continuing a downward trajectory. The centrist forces that have dominated European politics since the Second World War are, for the first time, projected to fall short of a majority at the EU level.
The 2024 European Parliament elections already shifted the political barycentre to the right. Right-of-centre parties gained almost 60 MEPs, much of it driven by far-right, conservative and national-populist forces. That movement is now showing up in the numbers again. Europe Elects projects the Socialists and Democrats would suffer the largest loss, shedding 18 MEPs. The European People's Party would lose 15, and Renew would lose nine. The Greens/EFA group, which has often propped up the parliamentary majority in the current term, would be reduced further, losing 14 seats.
The chamber's hierarchy would still hold, but the old balance looks more brittle by the day. The European People's Party would remain first, followed by the Socialists and Democrats, Patriots for Europe, the European Conservatives and Reformists and Renew. Yet the gap between the two main centrist forces and the largest right-wing group would narrow sharply, while Renew's position would be increasingly challenged by The Left. The Greens/EFA group would slip behind The Left and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations, becoming the smallest force in the Parliament, even as its votes become more pivotal than ever because centrist parties would need the Greens more than at any point to form a majority.
Who Gets the Leverage
The projection also shows how power inside the Parliament keeps moving toward the harder edges of the chamber. The hard-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group, which includes Alternative for Germany and is currently projected as the leading German party, would gain 19 seats. The far-left group The Left is also projected to gain 19 seats, driven largely by leftist parties in France and Germany. But most of the projected gains sit on the right. Patriots for Europe, which includes Marine Le Pen's National Rally, is projected to gain 12 seats, driven by Spain's Vox and Austria's Freedom Party. The European Conservatives and Reformists, dominated by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, would remain largely stable, with three additional MEPs.
Inside the European People's Party, the balance would also shift. Spain's Popular Party and Poland's Civic Platform would become the largest national delegations, ending the German Christian Democratic Union's decade-long dominance of the group. The European People's Party would likely strengthen its position further, retaining the ability to form an alternative majority with right-wing parties. That has already given the centre-right group significant leverage in day-to-day negotiations, and the projection suggests that leverage could remain intact even as the old centrist bloc weakens.
The European Conservatives and Reformists' standing could also be bolstered. The group has already gained significant institutional roles and legislative influence in the current term, and the projection suggests it could become more mainstream in the next. That is the language of the chamber: not democracy, but management. Not consent, but coalition arithmetic.
The Electoral Circus Rolls On
According to Europe Elects' director Tobias Gerhard Schminke, the latest projections confirm political trends that have defined the EU's electoral landscape in recent years. "The first one that's often overlooked is that we see a fragmentation in the political system. So the EPP has about 21% support now in Europe. So, it will require a lot of political families to come together to form a majority," Schminke told Euronews.
He also pointed to eroding support for the political centre, part of a broader decline in consensus around liberal democracy, human rights and cooperation between European states within the EU framework. Another trend he noted is that within the radical-right camp, forces like Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Le Pen's National Rally have reached a plateau, while most growth is coming from the more extreme forces gathered under the Europe of Sovereign Nations umbrella.
The next European Parliament elections are not due until June 2029, and three years is a long time in politics. Parliamentary groups can also shift before or after elections, which affects the distribution of power in the chamber. Still, if these trends hold through the next elections, they would further test the EU's unwritten cordon sanitaire, the agreement among mainstream parties to keep extremist forces from power. Schminke said, "What we still see is an incremental increase of the radical right camp overall. And we're now at the point where it is difficult to ignore these parties when it comes to coalition dynamics, be it in the European Parliament or at the national level."
That is the electoral circus in plain sight: shifting blocs, changing labels, the same institutions, the same hierarchy. The names move. The machinery stays.