Who won, who lost and who cocked up in the EU election

Winners

Ursula von der Leyen

The European Commission president emerged from Sunday’s vote with a possible coalition of Socialists, liberals and her own center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Together, these three groups — which supported her during her current term — are expected to have some 407 votes in the chamber. 

Though she only needs 361 votes in Parliament to secure a second mandate, the possibility of defections means her victory is not yet a done deal. She will also need the support of the European Union’s national leaders in the European Council. 

Still, the EPP is well-positioned to push her through. Manfred Weber, the leader of the EPP, called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and France’s Macron to support von der Leyen for five more years. The EPP won in Germany, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Croatia and Greece. They also picked up six seats in the Netherlands, outperforming expectations.

Giorgia Meloni

The Italian right-wing leader won the election in Italy, emerging well ahead of her rivals. That makes her, along with Poland’s Donald Tusk, one of the few leaders of a large EU country to romp home with a victory. She appears to have improved on her share of the vote compared to the 2022 election.

The far right

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally victory was the big story of the night after its strong performance impelled Macron to dissolve parliament and call a new election. Far-right parties also came first in Austria, tied for first place in the Netherlands and came in second in Germany and Romania. French firebrand Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest also scraped into Parliament. 
Socialists 

Well, kinda. While they didn’t exactly dazzle, Europe’s center-left parties held the line, coming in second in big countries like Spain and Italy and in a close third in France, where Raphaël Glucksmann appears to have resurrected the center-left. Don’t mention Germany, though, where Scholz’s Socialists came in a sad third, behind the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Péter Magyar

An ally-turned-rival of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Magyar has emerged as the undisputed face of Hungary’s opposition, winning some 30 percent of the vote after throwing his hat into the ring earlier this year.

Roberta Metsola

The Maltese president of the European Parliament got her party an extra seat, having racked up over 87,000 first preferences. Maltese media reported she became the country’s most voted MEP candidate since the country joined the EU. 

Losers

Emmanuel Macron

The French president was dealt a blow after his party came in a distant second, barely ahead of the Socialists he was once thought to have consigned to the political graveyard. His lead candidate Valérie Hayer will limp back to Brussels after having been repeatedly upstaged by her male allies, not least by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. According to a senior official from her Renew party, Attal even barred her from getting on the train from Paris to Brussels on Sunday night. 

Olaf Scholz

The German Chancellor’s Social Democrats got crushed by the center-right Christian Democrats and the far-right Alternative for Germany. With just 14 percent of the vote, the SPD received its worst result in a national election in more than a century. Scholz is facing calls from the center-right to do a Macron and call an early election.

Greens 

After a strong performance in 2019, the Greens took a thumping in Germany, slipping from 21 seats to perhaps as few as 12, barely clung on in France and got zero in Portugal. Overall they lost some 20 seats in a bleak night for the climate campaigners. Putting on a brave face, one of the party’s lead candidates, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout, said the Greens will seek to play a “constructive” role in coalition talks — that is, if von der Leyen is interested in talking to them.

Viktor Orbán

The Hungarian nationalist leader did worse than expected, after facing a fierce challenge from Magyar. While his Fidesz party took 43.8 percent of the vote, it was its worst-ever result in a European Parliament election. Still, Brussels will be watching whether he manuevers his MEPs into the nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists group, giving another boost to Meloni.

Matteo Salvini

The Italian deputy prime minister’s League party, which received 34 percent of the vote in 2019 and currently presides over the far-right Identity and Democracy group, received less than 9 percent this time around, putting it on par with Forza Italia (which ran with the late Silvio Berlusconi’s name on the ballot). Ciao to them.

The European Parliament 

They had one job and they cocked it up. A hiccup on stage by a Parliament spokesperson embarrassed the institution on its biggest night, when he read out different projected results to those being shown on the screen behind him. It prompted jeers from the journalists present with one shouting in pantomime style: “It’s behind you!”

Elisa Braün contributed reporting.