From the 23rd-26th of May, 2019, elections all across the 28 countries in the European Union for EU Parliament took off. The two most popular parties, the European People’s Party (center-right wing) and the Socialist & Democratic Party (center-left wing), went from holding 54% of all parliamentary seats, to now only 42%. Most of these lost seats went to more polarized positions on both the left and right.
Over 50% of all European voters partook in this election, being the highest turnout in decades.
Though a greater right-wing victory wave was sought, it is still a noticeable one. The most gains were in Italy, where the League Party won 34% of the vote, in France, where the National Rally won 23% of the vote (beating Macron’s party coalition by 1%), and Britain, where the Brexit Party, under Nigel Farage’s lead, won 34% of the vote (which will only matter until October 31st, when Britain will finally leave the European Union), which effectively beat Prime Minister Teresa May’s Conservative Party, which only garnered 8.7% of the vote, the lowest turnout for Conservative Party voters since the 1830’s. These right-wing movements have sprouted up in recent years, due to higher European unemployment rates, mass migration of Syrian refugees, and a rise in terror rates across the continent. Their goals are to limit the power of the European Union, and to let national governments be able to close their doors on mass migration.
Right-wing and nationalist parties have never had as much representation in European Parliament until this election, which Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Silvini, hopes to organize all of them under a single coalition.
On the left wing, the Greens party went from occupying 52 seats to 69. Most of their successes came from Belgium, France, Germany (which they won 24%, right behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, under the EPP), Ireland, and Netherland. The Greens are now the 4th most popular party in the European Parliament.
The Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, whose right-wing Fidesz Party won 52% of the vote, stated, “Europe is changing. [This is] a new era of politics.” However, this trend is not only in Europe. There has been a worldwide shift in democracies to moving more center-right, rather than center-left, like it has been for past decades.
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