Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
EP2024 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 33 | – |
EP today | 46 | 53 | 136 | 75 | 188 | 80 | 86 | 27 | 29 | – |
Jan. 25 (B) | 48 | 43 | 130 | 81 | 185 | 77 | 93 | 29 | 24 | 10 |
Mar. 25 (B) | 52 | 41 | 131 | 73 | 177 | 79 | 99 | 33 | 24 | 11 |
Mar. 25 (D) | 52 | 41 | 132 | 74 | 179 | 82 | 103 | 33 | 24 | – |
- Baseline scenario,
as of 24 March 2025.
(Click to enlarge.)
- Dynamic scenario,
as of 24 March 2025.
(Click to enlarge.)
The European Parliament seat projections, which have been published regularly on this blog for over a decade, document some interesting patterns in the European political mood. On the one hand, they show that, in the long term, there are indeed some common EU-wide trends and developments. For example, the rise of far-right parties since the euro crisis has affected almost all member states.
In the short term, on the other hand, election polls in different countries move largely independently of each other. Reactions to individual events – even those of pan-European significance, such as the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 or the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – can vary widely depending on the national party landscape. Similarly, the recent speech by US Vice President JD Vance (Rep./IDU) at the Munich Security Conference caused a big stir among all EU governments, but did not have a clear impact on the polls.
If the projection shows a rapid dynamic, it is usually due to sudden national swings in individual member states, for example as a result of national government crises or election campaigns. In any case, there have been several of these in the two months since the last seat projection at the end of January: In Germany, the final phase of the Bundestag election campaign in February brought surprising changes. In Romania and Poland, national presidential elections in May cast their shadows ahead. In Portugal, the parliament was dissolved and new elections will also be held in May.
New record high for the far right
In short, there was a lot of movement in the European election polls recently. The changes were not always in the same direction in all countries. For example, the German Left (EL) made strong gains just before and after the federal elections, whereas the Portuguese left-wing parties had a rather weak start to their national campaign. But there were some similarities as well: Almost in all member states where there have been significant shifts in recent weeks, far-right parties have made gains. In most cases, this was to the detriment of the center-right parties, i.e. the EPP and the Liberals.
If the European Parliament were to be re-elected now, each of the three far-right groups (ECR, PfE, and ESN) would do better than in the last election in 2024. Together, they would hold around 30% of the seats, making them stronger than ever before in history. Conversely, each of the four centrist groups (EPP, RE, S&D, and Greens/EFA) is currently in a worse position than in the 2024 elections, and they are also at an all-time low. The so-called “Venezuela alliance” of the EPP and the far-right groups would for the first time have more seats in the Parliament than the grand-coalition “platform” of the EPP, S&D and RE.
Big losses for the EPP
One of the biggest losses in the current seat projection is for the European People’s Party. The German CDU/CSU fell short of expectations in the Bundestag elections and has slipped even further in the first post-election polls. In other countries, EPP member parties have also fallen back; the Romanian UDMR and the Dutch BBB would not win any seats in the European Parliament now.
Only the French Républicains bucked the downward trend and made significant gains in a new French poll. Overall, the EPP group has 177 seats (–8 compared to the January forecast), its weakest position in this electoral term.
S&D almost unchanged
However, the second-placed S&D group can hardly benefit from this. For the Social Democrats, the first months of the year once again brought mixed results: They slightly lost support in Germany, Poland, Greece and Bulgaria, while making slight gains in France, the Netherlands and Croatia, among others.
In all these cases, however, the shifts in voter preferences were only small. The most significant gains are likely those in France: Together with its smaller partner Place Publique (led by the popular MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, who has also been very prominent in the international media recently), the PS is closing in on the liberal governing party RE (RE). If this trend continues, the Socialists can hope that they, and not Emmanuel Macron’s ruling alliance, will be seen as the main democratic alternative to Marine Le Pen’s far-right RN (PfE) in the next national elections.
In the projection, the S&D group reaches an almost unchanged total of 131 seats (+1). The gap to the EPP falls below 50 seats for the first time since the European elections, but is still higher than for most of the 2019-24 legislature.
Liberals plummet
The main loser in the last weeks has been the RE group. The Liberals have plummeted in France in particular, but have also suffered losses in Germany, Poland, Belgium and Slovenia. Gains in Romania and Portugal have only marginally offset this.
Overall, the RE group now stands at just 73 seats (–8) – their worst seat projection for almost ten years. In addition, the Liberals once again falls behind the ECR group, leaving them as only the fifth largest force in the European Parliament (as they were at last June’s elections).
Gains for the Left
Also the European Greens have lost some ground in recent weeks. In Germany, they lost many voters to the left in the final phase of the German election campaign; and in Denmark, their race to catch up with the Social Democrats recently suffered some setbacks. Overall, the Greens/EFA group is now projected to have 41 seats (–2).
The Left, on the other hand, is making strong gains. In particular, as mentioned above, it has massively improved its position in Germany, where it has more than doubled its support since the start of the Bundestag election campaign. In Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Cyprus, left-wing parties have also been on the rise. The French LFI, on the other hand, is falling back in the latest poll, and the two Portuguese left-wing parties, BE and CDU, would currently not win any seat in the European Parliament. Nevertheless, the Left group has made significant progress in the seat projection compared to January (52 seats/+4).
Far-right groups increase strongly
But the main winners of the last two months have been the three far-right groups.
The ECR group is benefiting above all from the gains made by the Romanian AUR. It is now in first place in the national polls and can hope to attract more protest votes following the disqualification and criminal proceedings against the independent far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu. In Belgium, the N-VA, which recently became the leading party in the national government for the first time, made slight gains. Despite recent setbacks for the Polish PiS, the ECR group now stands at 79 seats (+2) in the seat projection, its best result for almost a year.
The gains of the PfE group are even greater, with some significant increases in France, Poland, Belgium and Hungary, among others. In Czechia, the small motorists’ party Motoristé would also gain a seat now. The PfE group has suffered minor losses only in the Netherlands, where the PVV has been on a downward spiral since it entered government last summer and is now causing coalition crises on an almost monthly basis. Overall, however, the PfE group climbs to 99 seats (+6) in the forecast, just below its previous record high of last December.
Also the third far-right group, the ESN, is able to make further gains in the projection – mainly thanks to the federal election results of the German AfD, whose members make up almost two-thirds of the entire group. The ESN now has a total of 33 seats (+4). In every single seat projection since the European elections last year, it has exceeded its previous figure.
Little change among non-attached and “other” parties
Among the non-attached parties, the left-wing nationalist PE from Greece made significant gains, whereas the left-wing conservative BSW from Germany and the far-right SOS from Romania suffered losses. On balance, the projected number of non-attached MEPs remains unchanged at 24 seats (±0).
There is also little movement among the “other” parties (i.e. parties that are not currently represented in the European Parliament and do not belong to a European party, so that they cannot be clearly assigned to any political group), which now stand at 11 seats (+1). Unlike in January, the small Greek left-wing parties MéRA25 and KD would not win any seats now. New to the table are the Bulgarian far-right party MECh and the centre-right parties FD from Romania and Demokrati from Slovenia.
The overview
The following table breaks down the projected distribution of seats by individual national parties. The table follows the baseline scenario, in which each national party is attributed to its current parliamentary group (or to the parliamentary group of its European political party) and parties without a clear attribution are labelled as “other”.
In contrast, the dynamic scenario of the seat projection assigns each “other” party to the parliamentary group to which it is politically closest. In addition, the dynamic scenario also takes into account likely future group changes of parties that are already represented in the Parliament. In the table, the changes from the baseline to the dynamic scenario are indicated by coloured text and in the mouse-over text. The mouse-over text also lists any alternative groups that the party in question might plausibly join.
In the absence of pan-European election polls, the projection is based on an aggregation of national polls and election results from all member states. The specific data basis for each country is explained in the small print below the table. For more information on European parties and political groups in the European Parliament, click here.
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
EP2024 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 33 | – |
EP today | 46 | 53 | 136 | 75 | 188 | 80 | 86 | 27 | 29 | – |
Jan. 25 (B) | 48 | 43 | 130 | 81 | 185 | 77 | 93 | 29 | 24 | 10 |
Mar. 25 (B) | 52 | 41 | 131 | 73 | 177 | 79 | 99 | 33 | 24 | 11 |
Mar. 25 (D) | 52 | 41 | 132 | 74 | 179 | 82 | 103 | 33 | 24 | – |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
DE |
9 Linke 1 Tier |
11 Grüne 3 Volt |
14 SPD |
3 FDP 3 FW |
24 Union 1 Familie 1 ÖDP |
20 AfD |
3 BSW 2 Partei 1 PdF |
|||
FR | 7 LFI |
4 EELV | 12 PS | 14 RE | 11 LR | 33 RN |
|
|||
IT |
10 M5S 2 SI |
3 EV | 19 PD | 3 IV/+E |
7 FI 1 SVP |
24 FdI | 7 Lega | |||
ES |
2 Sumar 2 Pod 1 Bildu |
2 Sumar 1 ERC |
19 PSOE |
1 PNV |
22 PP | 1 SALF | 9 Vox |
1 Junts |
||
PL | 3 Lewica | 2 PL2050 |
19 KO 2 KP |
17 PiS | 5 Konf | 5 Konf | ||||
RO |
8 PSD |
5 USR 1 PMP |
4 PNL |
10 AUR | 2 SOS |
2 POT 1 FD |
||||
NL |
2 SP 1 PvdD |
3 GL |
4 PvdA |
7 VVD 2 D66 |
4 CDA |
|
8 PVV |
|
||
BE | 3 PTB |
1 Groen |
2 Vooruit 2 PS |
2 MR 2 LE |
1 CD&V 1 CSP |
4 N-VA | 4 VB | |||
CZ | 1 Piráti |
3 STAN 1 TOP09 1 KDU-ČSL |
2 ODS |
8 ANO 1 AUTO |
3 SPD |
1 Stačilo |
||||
EL | 2 Syriza | 3 PASOK | 6 ND | 3 EL | 1 FL |
3 PE 2 KKE 1 NIKI |
|
|||
HU |
1 DK |
|
10 TISZA |
9 Fidesz | 1 MHM |
|
||||
PT |
|
|
7 PS | 2 IL | 8 AD | 4 Chega | ||||
SE | 2 V | 1 MP | 8 S |
1 C |
4 M |
5 SD | ||||
AT | 2 Grüne | 5 SPÖ | 2 Neos | 4 ÖVP | 7 FPÖ |
|
||||
BG | 1 BSP |
2 PP 1 APS |
5 GERB 1 DB |
1 ITN |
3 V | 2 DPS-NN |
1 MECh |
|||
DK | 1 Enhl. | 2 SF | 4 S |
2 V |
2 LA 1 K |
2 DD |
1 DF |
|||
SK | 4 PS |
2 Slov 1 KDH |
1 SaS
|
1 REP |
4 Smer 2 Hlas |
|||||
FI | 1 Vas | 1 Vihreät | 4 SDP |
2 Kesk |
4 Kok |
3 PS | ||||
IE |
4 SF |
|
|
5 FF |
4 FG | 1 SD | ||||
HR | 1 Možemo | 5 SDP | 5 HDZ |
|
1 Most |
|||||
LT | 2 DSVL | 2 LSDP |
1 LS 1 LP |
2 TS-LKD |
1 LVŽS |
|
2 NA |
|||
LV | 1 Prog | 1 SDPS |
|
1 JV |
2 NA 1 LRA |
1 LPV |
1 ZZS 1 ST! |
|||
SI |
|
1 Vesna
|
1 SD | 2 GS |
4 SDS |
1 D |
||||
EE | 1 SDE |
1 RE 1 KE |
3 Isamaa | 1 EKRE | ||||||
CY | 2 AKEL |
1 DIKO |
2 DISY | 1 ELAM |
|
|||||
LU | 1 Gréng | 1 LSAP | 1 DP | 2 CSV | 1 ADR | |||||
MT | 3 PL | 3 PN |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
25-03-24 | 52 | 41 | 131 | 73 | 177 | 79 | 99 | 33 | 24 | 11 |
25-01-27 | 48 | 43 | 130 | 81 | 185 | 77 | 93 | 29 | 24 | 10 |
24-12-02 | 43 | 41 | 131 | 83 | 186 | 73 | 100 | 27 | 24 | 12 |
24-10-07 | 44 | 41 | 136 | 79 | 186 | 74 | 96 | 26 | 29 | 9 |
24-08-12 | 44 | 45 | 137 | 77 | 191 | 73 | 88 | 25 | 31 | 9 |
EP 2024 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 33 | – |
Left | G/EFA | S&D | RE | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | NI | other | |
25-03-24 | 52 | 41 | 132 | 74 | 179 | 82 | 103 | 33 | 24 | – |
25-01-27 | 49 | 43 | 132 | 82 | 185 | 80 | 96 | 29 | 24 | – |
24-12-02 | 43 | 42 | 133 | 82 | 186 | 77 | 104 | 27 | 26 | – |
24-10-07 | 46 | 41 | 137 | 79 | 187 | 77 | 97 | 26 | 30 | – |
24-08-12 | 45 | 46 | 138 | 78 | 191 | 76 | 89 | 25 | 32 | – |
EP 2024 | 46 | 53 | 136 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 33 | – |
The “EP 2024” line indicates the distribution of seats as of July 16, 2024, when the European Parliament was constituted following the election in June 2019.
An overview of older seat projections from previous legislative terms can be found here (2014-2019) and here (2019-2024).
Baseline scenario: The projection assigns parties that are already represented in the European Parliament to their current parliamentary group. National parties that are not currently represented in the European Parliament but belong to a European political party, are attributed to the parliamentary group of that party. In cases where the members of a national electoral list are expected to split up and join different political groups after the election, the projection uses the allocation that seems most plausible in each case (see below). Parties for which the allocation to a specific parliamentary group is unclear are classified as “other” in the baseline scenario.
According to the rules of procedure of the European Parliament, at least 23 MEPs from at least a quarter of the member states (i.e. 7 out of 27) are required to form a parliamentary group. Groupings that do not meet these conditions would therefore have to win over additional MEPs in order to be able to constitute themselves as a parliamentary group.
Dynamic scenario: In the dynamic scenario, all “other” parties are assigned to an already existing parliamentary group (or to the group of non-attached members). In addition, the dynamic scenario also takes into account other group changes that appear politically plausible, even if the respective parties have not yet been publicly announced them. To highlight these changes from the baseline scenario, parties that are assigned a different parliamentary group in the dynamic scenario are marked in the colour of that group. Moreover, the name of the group appears in the mouse-over text. Since the attributions in the dynamic scenario are partly based on a subjective assessment of the political orientation and strategy of the parties, they can be quite uncertain in detail. From an overall perspective, however, the dynamic scenario may be closer to the real distribution of seats after the next European election than the baseline scenario.
The full names of the political groups and of the national parties appear as mouse-over text when the mouse pointer is held still over the name in the table. In the case of “other” parties and parties that are likely to change group after the next European elections, the mouse-over text also lists the groups that the party might join. The group to which the party is assigned in the dynamic scenario is listed first.
If available, the most recent poll of voting intentions for the European Parliament is used to calculate the seat distribution for each country. In case that more than one poll has been published, the average of all polls from the two weeks preceding the most recent poll is calculated, taking into account only the most recent poll from each polling institute. The cut-off date for taking a survey into account is the last day of its fieldwork, if known, otherwise the day of its publication.
For countries where the last specific European election poll was published more than a fortnight ago or where significantly fewer polls for European than for national parliamentary elections were published in the last two weeks, the most recent available poll for the national parliamentary election or the average of all national or European parliamentary polls from the two weeks preceding the most recent available poll is used instead. For countries where there are no recent polls for parliamentary elections, polls for presidential elections may be used instead, with the presidential candidates’ polling figures assigned to their respective parties (this concerns France and Cyprus in particular). For member states for which no recent polls can be found at all, the results of the last national or European elections are used.
As a rule, the national poll results of the parties are directly projected to the total number of seats in the country. For countries where the election is held in regional constituencies without interregional proportional compensation (currently Belgium and Ireland), regional polling data is used where available. Where this is not the case, the number of seats is calculated for each constituency using the overall national polling data. National electoral thresholds are taken into account in the projection where they exist.
In Belgium, constituencies in the European election correspond to language communities, while polls are usually conducted at the regional level. The projection uses polling data from Wallonia for the French-speaking community and polling data from Flanders for the Dutch-speaking community. For the German-speaking community, it uses the result of the last European election (1 seat for CSP).
In countries where it is common for several parties to run as an electoral alliance on a common list, the projection makes a plausibility assumption about the composition of these lists. In the table, such multi-party lists are usually grouped under the name of the electoral alliance or of its best-known member party. Sometimes, however, the parties of an electoral alliance split up after the election and join different political groups in the European Parliament. In this case, the parties are listed individually and a plausibility assumption is made about the distribution of list places (usually based on the 2024 European election results). This includes the following cases: Spain: Sumar: Sumar (place 1 and 6 on the list), CatComù (2), Compromís (3), IU (4) and Más País (5); Ahora Republicas: ERC (1, 4), Bildu (2) and BNG (3); CEUS: PNV (1) and CC (2); Romania: ADU: USR (1-2, 4-5, 7-9), PMP (3) and FD (6); Netherlands: PvdA (1, 3, 5 etc.) and GL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Czechia: TOP09 (1, 3, 5 etc.) and KDU-ČSL (2, 4, 6 etc.); Hungary: DK (1-4, 6, 8), MSZP (5) and PM (7). When the election comes closer and the parties announce their candidates, the projection uses the distribution on the actual list instead. In some countries, the exact distribution of seats within an electoral alliance depends on preference votes and/or regional constituency results, so that only a plausible assumption can be made in advance. This concerns the following cases: Italy: AVS: SI (1, 3) and EV (2, 4); Poland: TD: PL2050 (1, 3, 5 etc.), KP (2, 4, 6 etc.). In Czechia, some polls combine ODS (ECR), TOP09 and KDU-ČSL (both EPP); in these cases, two thirds of the seats are allocated to the ODS and one third to the alliance of TOP09 and KDU-ČSL. For Poland, the projection assumes that the members of the Konfederacja are equally divided between the ESN and PfE groups. In Italy, a special rule allows minority parties to enter the Parliament with only a low number of votes, provided they form an alliance with a larger party. The projection assumes such an alliance between FI and the SVP.
Since there is no electoral threshold for European elections in Germany, parties can win a seat in the European Parliament with less than 1 per cent of the vote. Since German polling institutes do not usually report values for very small parties, the projection includes them based on their results in the last European election (3 seats each for Volt and FW, 2 seats for Partei, 1 seat each for Tierschutzpartei, ÖDP, Familienpartei, and PdF). If a small party achieves a better value in current polls than in the last European election, the poll rating is used instead. For Slovenia, the seat projection assumes that MEP Vladimir Prebilič will run for the Vesna party as in 2024; if polls show values for a hypothetical party of Prebilič’s own, these are attributed to Vesna.
The following overview lists the data source for each member state. The dates refer to the last day of the fieldwork; if this is not known, to the day of publication of the polls:
Germany: national polls, 20-24/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.France: national polls, 6/2/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Italy: national polls, 6-17/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Spain: national polls, 14-21/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Poland: national polls, 6-13/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Romania: national polls, 16/2/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Netherlands: national polls, 17-24/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, French community: polls for the national parliamentary election in Wallonia 11/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, Dutch community: polls for the national parliamentary election in Flanders, 11/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Belgium, German community: European election results, 9/6/2024.
Czechia: national polls, 5-16/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Greece: national polls, 6-19/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Hungary: national polls, 28/2-12/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Portugal: national polls, 6-10/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Sweden: national polls, 9-16/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Austria: national polls, 26/2-11/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Bulgaria: national polls, 16/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Denmark: national polls, 4-16/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Slovakia: national polls, 9-14/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Finland: national polls, 4-16/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Ireland: national polls, 19/2-1/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Croatia: national polls, 20/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Lithuania: national polls, 23-28/2/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Latvia: national polls, January 2025, source: Wikipedia.
Slovenia: national polls, 6-12/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Estonia: national polls, 12-19/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Cyprus: national polls, 11/3/2025, source: Wikipedia.
Luxembourg: national polls, 30/9/2024, source: Wikipedia.
Malta: national polls, 12-13/2/2025, source: Wikipedia.