This month’s EU parliamentary elections were characterised by significant gains for Europe’s right-wing parties, as the two centrist parties that had dominated the EU for decades ceded their overwhelming majority in the legislature.
The resounding success claimed by the League party in Italy, the National Rally party in France and the Brexit Party in the UK in the just-held elections to the European Parliament are a sign of changes in Europe and mark the beginning of a “new European Renaissance”, said Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, interior minister and leader of the League Party at Lega’s headquarters in Milan.
In France, exit polls indicated that Marine Le Pen’s right-wing, anti-immigrant National Rally party could celebrate a narrow, symbolic victory over Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche.The EU parliament is projecting that a larger share of Britain’s seats will go to the Brexit Party as Nigel Farage’s newly founded party was forecast to win 31% of the vote.
The Greens also enjoyed success across Europe, with the group jumping from 50 MEPs in 2014 to around 70.
The makeup of the parliament will be used by the 28 heads of state and government to guide their choice in replacing Juncker and his counterpart in the European council, Donald Tusk.