2019 European Parliament election


The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament were elected to represent more than 512 million people from 28 member states. In February 2018, the European Parliament had voted to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 if the United Kingdom were to withdraw from the European Union on 29 March 2019. However, the United Kingdom participated alongside other EU member states after an extension of Article 50 to 31 October 2019; therefore, the allocation of seats between the member states and the total number of seats remained as it had been in 2014.
On 26 May 2019, the centre-left and centre-right parties suffered significant losses, while pro-EU centrist, liberal and environmentalist parties and anti-EU right-wing populist parties made substantial gains. The European People's Party led by Manfred Weber won the most seats in the European Parliament, making Weber the leading candidate to become the next President of the European Commission. Despite this, the European Council decided after the election to nominate Ursula von der Leyen as new Commission President.

New law

On 7 June 2018, the Council agreed at ambassador level to change the EU electoral law and to reform old laws from the 1976 Electoral Act. The purpose of the reform is to increase participation in elections, raise understanding of their European character and prevent irregular voting while at the same time respecting the constitutional and electoral traditions of the member states. The reform forbids double voting and voting in third countries, thus improving the visibility of European political parties. To avoid double voting, contact authorities are established to exchange data on voters, a process that has to start at least six weeks before the elections.
The European Parliament gave its consent on 4 July 2018 and the Act was adopted by the Council on 13 July 2018. However, not all member states ratified the Act prior to the 2019 elections and therefore this election took place in line with the previous rules.

Political groups and lead candidates

Spitzenkandidat system

The Spitzenkandidat process involves the nomination by European political parties of candidates for the role of Commission President, the party winning the most seats in the European Parliament receiving the first opportunity to attempt to form a majority to back their candidate. This process was first used in 2014 and was opposed by some in the European Council. The future of the process is uncertain, but the European Parliament has attempted to codify the process and the parties are almost certain to select the candidates again. On 23 January 2018, the Constitutional Affairs Committee adopted a text stating that the Spitzenkandidat process could not be overturned, and that Parliament "will be ready to reject any candidate in the investiture procedure of the Commission President who was not appointed as a Spitzenkandidat in the run-up to the European elections". In May 2018, a Eurobarometer poll suggested that 49% of the 27,601 individuals from all 28 EU countries surveyed think that the Spitzenkandidat process will help them vote in the next European elections while 70% also think that the process requires a real debate on European issues.

Overview

European People's Party

Incumbent Jean-Claude Juncker stated he would not seek a second term as President of the European Commission.
Two candidates sought the nomination of the EPP:
At their 2018 Congress in Helsinki, the EPP elected Manfred Weber as their Spitzenkandidat for President of the European Commission.

Party of European Socialists

Previous candidate Martin Schulz left the European Parliament in 2017 to head the Social Democratic Party of Germany, but he stepped down from the latter position in 2018.
Two candidates were nominated by PES member parties and organisations:
Šefčovič announced his withdrawal in November and supported Frans Timmermans as the Common Candidate.
The party convened an extraordinary Congress in Lisbon to ratify the election of the candidate and to vote upon the manifesto.

European Conservatives and Reformists

, an MEP for the Czech Civic Democratic Party, is the Spitzenkandidat of the European Conservatives and Reformists.

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party

Rather than present a single candidate, the ALDE group presented a Team Europe of seven people as the alliance's leading candidates:
As in 2014, the Greens adopted the principle of having two leading candidates for the European Elections 2019. Unlike in 2014, where the candidates were chosen through an open online primary elections, the two leading candidates were elected by the Council of the Party in Berlin in November 2018. Four people, two of them being currently MEPs, have declared their candidacy:
At their 2018 Congress in Berlin, the party elected Ska Keller and Bas Eickhout as their Spitzenkandidaten for the President of the European Commission.

European Free Alliance

, a Catalan historian, academic and former Vice President of Catalonia who, at the time of the election, was imprisoned because of his involvement in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, was the Spitzenkandidat of the European Free Alliance.

Party of the European Left

The designated candidates are Violeta Tomič from Slovenia and Belgian trade-unionist Nico Cué.

Populist and Eurosceptic groups

The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy was widely expected to disband after the election. One reason was that its biggest share of MEPs came from the United Kingdom, which was long expected to leave the EU before the election. The second was that the second-biggest partner, Italy's Five Star Movement, felt uneasy about this alliance anyway, having unsuccessfully tried to join the Greens/EFA or ALDE group instead. In February 2019, M5S alongside partners from Croatia, Finland, Greece and Poland presented a new alliance of anti-establishment parties that claim to be neither left nor right.
In the 5-month period preceding the 2019 European Parliament elections, the blog byoblu.com, which collaborated with the Five Star Movement, published deceptive information on Twitter, spreading disinformation during the 2019 European elections. The blog byoblu.com is owned by Claudio Messora, who was the head of communications for the 5 Star Movement and a close associate and friend of Beppe Grillo.
The Movement is an alliance of populist parties set up by Steve Bannon in 2018 with the purpose of contesting the European elections. Participating parties included, at least temporarily, Lega Nord, People's Party of Belgium and Brothers of Italy and possibly French National Rally. Originally envisioned as an attempt to unite the populist parties in Europe, The Movement has so far been snubbed by the Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria and the UK Independence Party. In March 2019, reporters assessed Bannon's project as a failure. Shortly ahead of the election, Marine Le Pen of the French National Rally distanced herself from Bannon, clarifying that he played no role in her party's campaign.
In April 2019, Matteo Salvini of Italy's Lega launched the European Alliance of Peoples and Nations as a new coalition of populist, hard Eurosceptic and anti-immigration parties. It has been joined by most of the members of the outgoing Europe of Nations and Freedom group as well as some former EFDD and ECR parties. It has been predicted to become the fourth largest group in parliament with an estimate of more than 80 MEPs.

New parties

2019 saw the debut of new parties such as Wiosna of Poland, Czech Pirate Party of Czech Republic, USR-PLUS of Romania, Human Shield and Most of Croatia, ĽSNS and Progressive Slovakia of Slovakia. Some of the new parties have already joined European parties, e.g. LMŠ of Slovenia is a member of ALDE.
The new Brexit Party won 29 seats in the United Kingdom. As such, it won the most seats by any national political party in the parliament; the German CDU/CSU also won 29 seats but as an alliance.
The biggest new party after UK exit is La République En Marche! of French President Emmanuel Macron that was formed in 2016 and won the French presidential and parliamentary elections of the following year. Initially, it balked at joining any of the existing party families, instead trying to form a new parliamentary group of pro-European centrists who support Macron's plans to reform the European institutions, drawing away members from ALDE, EPP, and S&D. Possible partners for such a project were expected to include Spanish Ciudadanos, Progressive Slovakia, and the Hungarian Momentum Movement. However, the hypothetical group was considered to have difficulties to find MEPs from at least seven member states as is required to form a new group. In November 2018, LREM decided to cooperate with the liberal ALDE Group instead. Nevertheless, Macron stressed that this was merely a loose alliance and his party is not a member of ALDE Party. He bluntly criticised ALDE for accepting donations from the Bayer-Monsanto chemical group while LREM's campaign chief threatened to recall the alliance. In April and May 2019, LREM continued its efforts to build a broader group, including ALDE, but also centrist and centre-left parties outside of ALDE.
The European Spring initiated from the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 ran as a pan-European party alliance with one unified vision for Europe, the European Green New Deal. The most prominent figure is the former Greek minister Yanis Varoufakis, who ran as a candidate in the constituency of Germany, but failed to secure a seat. Despite garnering approximately one and a half million votes, no representatives who ran DiEM25 were elected, due to the votes being dispersed throughout different EU countries.
As a new pan-European party, Volt Europa was founded in different European countries two years before the elections and successfully campaigned in eight EU countries for the elections with one transnational programme. Despite missing its own goal to create a parliamentary group on its own, approximately half a million votes in total were sufficient to send one of the founders, Damian Boeselager, into the European Parliament via a German Volt list. Since June 2019, Volt is part of the group of the Greens/EFA.