7.57 am: Christmas party success in Luxembourg
In Luxembourg, Prime Minister Luc Frieden’s Christian Socialists won the European elections. The right-wing conservative Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR) has been elected to the European Parliament for the first time. According to provisional final results, he won 11.8 percent of the vote in Sunday’s European elections, one of the six seats for Luxembourg.
7.36 am: Dusk’s Citizens Alliance wins in Poland
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal-conservative Citizens Alliance has won European elections in Poland. Tusk’s party got 37.1 percent, according to a tally released by the Election Commission on Monday. It can send 21 members to the EU Parliament.
The largest opposition party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s nationally conservative PiS, came second with 36.2 percent of the vote. However, compared to initial projections, the gap to the Citizens’ Coalition has narrowed. PiS will be represented by 20 MPs. The far-right Confederacy became the third strongest with 12.1 percent and six MPs.
6:59 am: Right up
Right-wing parties have won big in European elections in many countries. In Italy, right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party was clearly ahead on Sunday. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Rallye Nationale won, followed by snap elections for the National Assembly. In Austria, the right-wing FPÖ became a strong force. In Germany, the AfD achieved its best result to date, coming in second behind the Union. Across Europe, two former right-wing populist coalitions, the EKR and ID, made significant gains.
Overall, the clear pro-European camp in the European Parliament is very large.
6:21 am: Highest turnout since reunification
Participation in European elections in Germany reached a new high since reunification at 64.8 percent. The federal election authority made the announcement on Monday morning when the provisional official results of the direct election of 96 members of the European Parliament from Germany were announced. Turnout was 3.4 percentage points higher than in 2019 (61.4 per cent) – and the highest since unification.
6.15am: Thuringian AfD MP wants to lead Aust AfD delegation
The AfD achieved its best result in Sunday’s European elections with 15.9 percent and will be represented in the new EU parliament with 15 members – four more than before. Thuringian state MP René Ost wants to lead this new, significantly larger representation of German right-wing populists in the EU parliament. The 37-year-old was a candidate on the electoral list behind Maximilian Grau and Petr Bystron – but both pulled themselves out of the election in the weeks leading up to various issues and will not be considered for the top job.
5:00am: Counting completed – Union win in West, AfD in East
The Union won the European elections in Germany by a clear margin. With all 400 constituencies counted, the CDU and CSU combined won 30.0 percent of the vote, the central election official announced on Monday morning. This is 1.1 percentage points higher than the 2019 European elections, when it was second with 15.9 percent (by 4.9 points).
The AfD came out on top in all five East German states, while the Union became the strongest force in the West German states.
The traffic light parties suffered losses: the SPD achieved 13.9 percent (minus 1.9 points), the Greens 11.9 percent (minus 8.6 points) and the FDP 5.2 percent (minus 0.2 points). Wagenknecht’s party BSW came from a steady start to 6.2 percent and the left half to 2.7 percent.
12:07 am: Prediction confirms victory of center-right alliance in European elections
The first forecast after all polling stations have closed confirms victory for the centre-right EPP coalition in the European elections. The EPP’s top candidate and CDU politician Ursula von der Leyen can expect a second term as EU Commission president despite strong gains by right-wing parties, according to figures released by the European Parliament. According to the latest figures, your centre-right coalition with the German parties CDU and CSU has 189 seats (176 out of 705 most recently) and more than a quarter of 720 seats in the future. This is well ahead of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals and previous right-wing nationalist and right-wing populist coalitions.
