Conservatives win European elections – DW – 06/09/2024

The German Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission and the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP) to repeat the post, celebrated the victory of her political group in the European elections this Sunday (06/09/2024). The rise of the extreme right, which won in France, thereby gaining an electoral lead, and becoming the second political force in Austria and in Germany.

“We will create a bastion against extremists on the left and the right,” the Christian Democratic candidate to re-elect the community executive said in Brussels, whose party will have secured more than 180 out of 720 seats in the European Parliament, according to the first official figures.“Today is a good day for the EPP, we have won the European election (…) Voters have recognised our leadership over the last five years,” von der Leyen said from her campaign headquarters in the Belgian capital.

On his side, Manfred Weber, chairman of the European People’s Party, celebrated the confidence in his political family, which would have won the election with more than 176 seats. Weber called for “a democratic Europe”, asked that the “winner of the election” be allowed to preside over the European Commission and assured that popular parties are the best antidote to extremes.

According to the surveys, the EPP will be followed by the Alliance of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D) with 135 MEPs (four fewer). They will be followed by the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group with 71 seats, with two more seats, and the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) with 62 seats and thirteen more. The Greens/European Free Alliance, which will add 53 seats, will fall sharply to sixth place compared to fourth place in the previous chamber, in which they had 18 seats more. The smallest group in the European Chamber will remain The Left, which gained 34 seats today and three more than in the outgoing chamber.

lgc (AFP, EFE)