European Parliament elections, June 2024

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Renew and G/EFA seem to be the ones that will drop the most in Flanders as well. Both are hurt a lot and seem to be heading to a loss. They're not polling well.

S&D, The Left and ID probably will improve their standing (though slightly, we don't have too many seats to elect as well). ECR probably status quo or a loss of 1 seat. Same for EPP, status quo or a loss of 1-2 seats.

Based on current polls, I suspect Flanders to be like:

ID - 3 (same)
ECR - 3 (same)
S&D - 2 (+1)
EPP - 1 (-1)
The Left - 1 (+1)
G/EFA - 1 (same)
Renew - 1 (-1)

ID only narrowly had that third seat, they might be heading to a fourth but might fall short and Greens fell short of a 2nd one, last time, now they'll be defending the one they have but they should be okay doing that. Open VLD (Renew) is almost certain to lose their 2nd seat and so is CD&V for EPP. Vooruit - rising in the polls - probably get an additional seat and The Left gets their first if they continue to poll like this.

EPP get 1 seat from German-speaking community (is always like that)

And in French speaking Belgium i don't expect too much change.

But Greens could lose 1 here while The Left gains 1. Though S&D is a contendor for a 3rd seat but i think the margins are too close so it's likelier its a fight between The Left and Greens here. If Les engagés disappoint a lot, they might lose theirs seat as well, but i don't think thats very likely and I suspect they're underpolled.

S&D - 2 (same)
Renew - 2 (same)
The Left - 2 (+1)
G/EFA - 1 (-1)
EPP - 1 (same)

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Metsola meeting with Meloni (who is the most significant far right leader in Europe) and Weber courting them too shows that the EPP may want to end the Grand Coalition in favour of a right-wing coalition. EPP also met with Le Pen to potentially discuss RN joining forces with them if the French "republican" right disintegrates with them. It won't happen I think but it shows how mentalities are changing.

Would almost certainly lead to some EPP parties leaving EPP

EDIT: Apologies for quoting a post from 2023...

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https://nos.nl/artikel/2521340-europese-liberalen-overwegen-schorsing-vvd-vanwege-samenwerking-met-pvv

European liberals consider expelling VVD because of cooperation with PVV on national level.

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Unsurprisingly, putting a 23 year old as your lead candidate for the EU elections has not gone well for  Austria's Green Party:

"The “Schilling affair,” as Austrian newspapers have dubbed it, began in early May when local media published a series of reports casting doubt on the former activist’s suitability for the role. Although tabloids happily jumped on the story, much of the reporting was led by Der Standard, a sober broadsheet.

In its article kicking off the media storm, Der Standard portrayed Schilling as having “a problematic relationship with the truth,” with multiple anonymous sources accusing her of spreading damaging rumors about friends, allies and journalists.

The report’s key piece of evidence: A cease-and-desist order, signed by Schilling, that stated the politician faced a €20,000 fine if she repeated false claims that a former friend’s husband had been violent to the point of causing his wife to have a miscarriage.

Schilling says she had simply been concerned for her friend, and shared her worries with her close circle. “That was passed on … I apologized. I wanted to clarify that this should never [have] become public, so I agreed to sign a settlement,” which “was leaked by other people.”

Last week, Der Standard published another bombshell: Based on text messages and an affidavit, the newspaper reported that Schilling had allegedly discussed ditching the Greens after getting elected to the European Parliament to join the far-left faction instead. "

...

"What followed was a crisis communications disaster of epic proportions. The Greens — who currently govern Austria in an uneasy coalition with the conservatives — initially dismissed the reports, prompting an outcry.

Green Vice Chancellor Walter Kogler denounced the allegations as “anonymous grumbles and farts.” He later apologized for the crude expression."

...

"After the second set of leaked chats that cast doubt on her Greens loyalty, the party switched to counterattack mode. The allegations, senior party members suggested, were part of a sinister conspiracy against Schilling, spread by other left-wing politicians.

In a press conference widely described as a PR debacle, Greens Secretary-General Olga Voglauer used a term seen as having antisemitic connotations while implying that the Social Democrats were involved in spreading the allegations. Voglauer was forced to apologize, but her comment had already sent the Greens’ campaign spiraling."

Seems more like a proof of how discrimination by age and gender is still a thing.

"Choosing a young woman to head your list backfired"... yeah i don't think that's the issue to be honest.

It's misogynism and the gerontocratic nature of our democracy.

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The problem with that is that our vote in Belgium isn't worth anything, because basically we have ridicilous high turnout, will almost certainly have more or even twice as many votes cast in the Netherlands but for less seats due to mandatory voting.

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1799013734003978503

https://twitter.com/Nassreddin2002/status/1799137117580279819

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1799070846067294593

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1798809038219829344

Perhaps a wider trend.

After all Macron isn't doing so well either.

Current projection is from 102 to 81 seats and potential for a far right group to overtake liberals as third largest.

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Aside of Finland, all a bit disappointing.

European election results haven't been counted yet. I suspect PVDA-PTB will do a bit worse there for federal elections, esp. given the mild losses in Wallonia and that the party isn't a real good fit for Flemish people in Europe.

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European elections Belgium

97.2% counted

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Flanders



Wallonia + most of Brussels



Total of Belgium



seats -> sea above

still not 100% counted but for most part it is

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Well PVDA-PTB won Brussels for The Left despite running on anti-NATO for EU elections.

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So far it looks like Fidesz is weakening (down 9% on 2019). An ironic twist that the far-right populist wave isn't being felt in their heartland.

Because there is no wave. It's just France and maybe Austria (though there they also underperformed the polling), which being both big and early counting colored the narrative. And the France situation is cause of French factors, just like how every other contest is cause of their own national factors.

Don't make me list the countries and go into details about why the narrative sucks, please...

This was also a very expected result, and results from country to country will differ since it's not wide EU campaign, but national campaigns that are not being followed over the border, unless by political addicts like us.

The far right populist wave is gaining traction, but that was evident in a lot of elections before today, some of the corrections still had to be applied on the EU level.

I don't know what people really expected... but this was always what it was going to be. Even Macron being destroyed was predicted in the polls, and is his own fault.

This forum defended him so much esp. early on. I never did. I hope you see why now. This was always going to happen sooner or later.

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Fascist world order is imminent

This is what social media does to the world basically.

The whole right wing populist surge has been created and boosted by 1. fake news on social media and 2. increasingly elitist attitude by traditional media.

And i'm not talking about 2024 alone, i'm talking about the long term trend, Brexit, Trump etc all include that. Was unthinkable 20 years ago and before.

And yes one other big factor ofc, the elephant in the room, backlash versus immigration and perhaps also some of the increasingly globalizing social liberal attitude (the whole woke thing etc), but the latter part is in part fueled because of the new media dynamics.

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What Oryx said is true but I will say that there was a genuine "green wave" in 2019 that caught many polls by surprise. Climate was then the number one issue in nearly every country. This time there was no one unifying issue so the election has devolved back into 27 separate contests.

Yea there was only room to fall...

But it's weird since 2019-2024 has been very extreme from the climate and yet it seems on the backburner for many people and it's no longer an important theme. I guess 2019 was still the climate strikes kind of thing going on?

Also another factor in the loss for Greens generally, is loss of support among youth. I've seen polls among youth in several countries increasingly backing right wing and far right parties like in France, like in Eastern Germany, like in Belgium, like in the Netherlands.

Three reasons why people don't vote with the climate in their mind

1. They think climate measures only cost money, and people at the end of the day vote with the wallet (they might want to take action but they don't want to be the victim of said measures). Or acknowledge it but it's not their biggest priority, since it doesn't seem to affect them personally.

2. Greens generally are seen as being part of the progressive internationalist and hyperliberal/progressive world - something increasingly getting unpopular. The average person doesn't really care about xe/xyr, transgenderneutral bathrooms etc. The internet maybe does but let's face it, most of us are neurodivergent and lots of transgender people also are.

3. Lots of fake news about climate on social media / tabloids and lack of understanding from general population or transparency from several traditional media.

Covid also played a role in making youth more right wing... There was a reason i was very anti-covid
 measures too. I'm sometimes ridiculed here for several of my takes but you have to say, i have often right despite advocating/saying the very unpopular or controversial things.

I warned... this is what i warned for. Who doesn't want to listen, simply has to feel.

Also ageing means for progressive measures, we're often in the minority. And not all immigrants are that progressive either. The Islam religion is quite a social conservative religion too, and it's one of the things they abandon the left for (or could).

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Pandemic was the end of climate change. Many people got into their heads that the efforts to fight the climate crisis would require stuff similar to the "draconian lockdowns". Also the fact that the richest countries won't be the most affected by climate change. It'll be countries like Chad.

The thing it's very hard to connect climate change to everyday issues that affect people immediately, like finances, family, work, how society around them is changing. It's a very indirect issue and requires some degree of knowledge or education to really be aware and familiar of how problematic it is. It's a bit of Mazlov's Pyramid at work here and climate change is close to the top.

The pandemic did affect us a lot closer, our lives were immediately instantly affected by lockdowns, social isolation etc. That really did hurt a lot for people, like rise in mental health issues, unhappiness, finances in some cases, school closures causing educational problems that sometimes ppl suffer long term effects of (decrease of education quality), more reliance on social media and sometimes dangerous reclusive communities that people still sometimes are part off (since well people couldn't talk to friends anymore for a moment).

The pros never outweighed the cons of the lockdown and this is part of the effect. People talk about generations and naming them. Well, we have a lockdown generation now. This was a life-changing event for them that will affect their views and thinking for a very long time.

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https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1799949950475715049

Generally a big loser, alongside Greens and not being mentioned enough is liberals. I think it's safe to say they are for lots of people just the worst of the left and right combined

For large portion, economically anti-working class and for another portion too culturally monopolitian/liberal. That's why they won't appeal to left and right, and are alongside Greens that basically also have that same impression in a lot of countries lose alongside them, as more populist parties tend to make gains.

One reason they still do better than they should is because Eastern Europe often doesn't have a left wing alternative (that is pro-EU, anti-Putin let's face it), and because the left is a more toxic brand due to the USSR association, and has a more social conservative touch due to the ancestral ties (and also orthodox religion, in case of like KKE). Otherwise they'd even do worse since for a lot of left leaning, culturally liberal people, this makes the liberals the only credible alternative to a far right threat here, like Hungary, Slovakia, etc.

It's also mostly in straight liberal vs far right match ups that the far right or populist tends to win. Pattern we've seen a lot today, esp. in France.

It's much easier for a folksier far right party to convince a working class person for joining/voting them if the opposition is Liberals as opposed to socialists, as the far right can easily claim to be economically populist / third way politics like in many nations they do in Europe, eventually outrunning an economically conservative liberal party on this.

Macron has been eating into the left, and - with his call for snap election - probably wants to destroy the left even more, but eventually it ends up helping Le Pen especially long term when there's no left wing alternative.

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Also ageing means for progressive measures, we're often in the minority. And not all immigrants are that progressive either. The Islam religion is quite a social conservative religion too, and it's one of the things they abandon the left for (or could).

I think the main issue that could fix a lot of the issues that create the Muslim splinter parties like Nyans etc are the ghettoization of some of these communities which leads to isolation and reinforcement of closed minded views. Part of the issue is of course some people wanting immigrants in their home as cleaners but not wanting them in their nice gated communities. Not the case everywhere of course but I think it’s part of the issue in the US. (And here it’s beyond religious minorities, or even race altogether, and just political views, I’ve been to some suburbs in the south (usually developments which my family have been calling “squidsvilles” for years because they’re like that episode of SpongeBob) that give the feeling that if you said you didn’t like Trump, they’d do everything possible to force you to move away) The only sense of community is that of people like yourself which engenders closed minded thinking since you don’t often meet people who are unlike you.

Partial agree, but this isn't really a solution, it's more of an observation.

Like when watching the Belgian elections, i seriously considered moving away in the future since i feel i don't belong where I live here and need to live in a more urban area. And well there are a million people who also consider moving to Canada or so if Trump gets elected again, or go live in New York if they're somewhat progressive minded.

In reality, the ghettoization you describe is also occuring in "the nice traditional more rural communities" that also tend to live in isolation around their community that reinforce their view. And the result is a sharper and sharper urban vs rural gap, and polarization along those lines. And that's what we are seeing in almost every place in the world, especially as economic conditions also sharply differ along those lines with that difference also increasing. You basically are creating two parallel worlds.

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Good lord.

94% of municipalities won by far right.

Also more proof of the urban vs rural gap. Paris white blob and other than that just a few cities, but otherwise it's all RN.

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Looking at the results among under 30 year olds, there's one major and uncomfortable takeaway: We definitely need better history lessons in school.

lol that's not the take away or conclusion you should have. Besides history lessons are already very good.

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Looking at the results among under 30 year olds, there's one major and uncomfortable takeaway: We definitely need better history lessons in school.

I doubt it's a coincidence that the age group with the lowest percentage voting for AfD is the one that includes those who lived through Nazism and war. (Increased religiosity among older generations is also likely a factor, but still.)

True but these are increasingly getting older & older, with more people starting to die. I mean someone born in 1945 today is 79 years old and these haven't really experienced nazism and war at all consciously.

But the traditional power block that persisted for so long: christian democrats, liberals and social democrats defintely play a role in why any other party has trouble appealing to these. You see that these traditional blocks generally have less power in eastern Europe (and also eastern Germany), since they're only established since 1990, not since 1945. Voting out of tradition is definitely a thing. Don't expect an 85 year old to suddenly change political views abruptly. These traditional power blocks are strong because they were not only established in politics, but in many layers of society (labor unions, healthcare services, etc).

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Looking at the results among under 30 year olds, there's one major and uncomfortable takeaway: We definitely need better history lessons in school.

lol that's not the take away or conclusion you should have. Besides history lessons are already very good.

"History" is drab.  "Identity" is cool.  There's the nub of the problem.

If that's what people think is the cause of the popularity of the far right, than it's no surprise to me at all that the far right is popular.

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Looking at the results among under 30 year olds, there's one major and uncomfortable takeaway: We definitely need better history lessons in school.

I doubt it's a coincidence that the age group with the lowest percentage voting for AfD is the one that includes those who lived through Nazism and war. (Increased religiosity among older generations is also likely a factor, but still.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation

This is basically something you'll have to read to understand it, but it's important to keep this in mind with Western European politics always.

Influence of pillarization has been declining gradually though over the last decades, which is why younger generations are less impacted by it, and more swingy.