Reflections on the 2019 European parliamentary elections
With around 200 million people voting across Europe, the make-up of the new European Parliament for the next five years has been decided.
While the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) won the most seats, its contingent is down on the previous election. The traditional centre-left grouping of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – which I was a member of – has also been squeezed by the rise of populist parties. Anti-establishment parties won close to a third of seats, including the Brexit Party in the UK, and they head to Brussels to be destructive, not constructive.
