EU Election results

Here a bit of what I wrote last on the subject. In the table, I have added the provisional results. Remember, the groups are listed from Left to Right.

Looking at the latest opinion polls (taken before the Austrian scandal), I sometimes wonder whether the rise of the far right is being hyped to something far bigger than it is.

                                Seats 214       Proj. 2019             Result

GUE-NGL                        52                    46                    38
Greens-EFA                    51                     56                    70    

S&D                                189                   149.                 150
ALDE                                68                     97                  107

EPP                                  217                   167                 179

ECR                                   74                     57                   58

EFDD                                 45                    57                   56
ENF                                   37                     57                   58      

Others                               18                     65                   35

As Politico put it, Populist tide rises, but fails to flood European Union.

BBC - The nationalist right didn't sweep the board. Traditional governing parties were not all decimated, as some commentators had breathlessly predicted.

And one observation - I am quite amazed at how accurate the pollsters were, given there were around 200 parties in 28 countries in the race. Look at the 3 groups after the EPP - quite amazing.

Some takeaways from the results

1) There were fears that the far right could get 25-30% of the vote. As it happened, they just made 15%. The only 3 countries where they got disturbing totals were Hungary (52%), Italy (33%) and France (23%). Hungary is tiny, so hardly affects the totals. Italy is worrying, but if you look at Italian elections in the last 30 years, its a whole series of ups and downs. Just being anti-migration doesn’t put food on the table. Salvini will need to deliver on the economy, or lose a lot next time. There is the 30% for the Brexit party, but nobody in mainland Europe cares about that anymore.

2) the 2 Green groups together also got 15% of the vote, and the moderate one got more than either of the far right groups. They even came second in Germany, where the far right AfD only got 10%, much less than feared.

3) the Greens got 30% of the under-30 vote, well ahead of everyone else, so their future should be bright.

4) Except for Germany and Austria, socialist parties did much better than last time almost everywhere. But they still have a big task ahead to get back their working class voters who went to the far right. In Austria, even the Ibiza tape cost the FPÖ only a few percent, and all of that went to the conservatives.

Finally, after Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdogan and Modi, its good to see that the EU, with all its problems, is still holding firm against the racists, bigots and crazies. Maybe we can still prove H.L.Mencken wrong. He said 100 years ago that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

However, another quote of his has already come true - 

1. As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.