Europe Elects Newsletter 🇪🇺

#9 — September 2024

What’s up, Europe? The last months of this year are absolutely stuffed with elections, so stay tuned! This month we’ll focus on some polling developments and next month we’ll cover news out of Austria, Germany, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Georgia in depth. But first, if you’d like to encourage others to subscribe, please use this link:

Truth in Polling Project

Europe Elects: Truth in Polling (EETIP) is a publicly available database of pollsters in each European country, assessing essential information related to their activities. With this project, we aim to promote transparency in the polling industry, as well as deepen dialogue with political pollsters in countries of the European Political Community with the goal of reviewing their work collaboratively with them.

Learn more here.

European Parliament (EP) seats projection

It’s been a little over two months since the 2024 European Elections — so clearly it’s time to look toward the next one in 2029.

The latest projection can be found here.

EPP: 185 (-3)

S&D: 141 (+5)

PfE: 93 (+9)

ECR: 82 (+4)

RE: 73 (-4)

G/EFA: 40 (-13)

LEFT: 46 (+1)

NI: 31 (-2)

ESN: 27 (+2)

Unaffiliated: 2 (+2)

+/- vs. 2024 EU Parliamentary Elections

European Council (EUCO) tracking + Other European Heads of State 

Europe Elects does not limit its coverage of EU politics to the European Parliament. Being composed of 27 political leaders from the entire continent, the European Council is an entity shaping the political priorities of the Union. 

The Council’s composition changes much more frequently than the Parliament’s—and thanks to our coverage, you can see the timeline of those dynamic shifts at any moment here.

Below, you can see the European Council's current composition, as well as its membership weighted by population.

Notable Updates 

• Belgium: Bart De Wever (N VA-ECR) was given the role of formateur once again early this month. He previously returned the mandate to form a new government on 22 August. According to The Brussels Times, De Wever will have until 17 October to form a government. Belgium is no stranger to long and difficult government formations — the country’s 2010–2011 government formation lasted 541 days.

• Austria & Germany: Right-wing parties saw success in several elections here. We will cover these elections and their fallout with more specificity in next month’s newsletter.

Electoral Calendar 2023/2024

Do you want to be sure not to miss any major election coming up? 

Europe Elects doesn’t want you to either! Check out our publicly available electoral calendar for the upcoming year. 

https://europeelects.eu/calendar/

Some Upcoming elections

• Lithuania (National parliament): 13 October

• Moldova (Presidential): 20 October

• Georgia (National parliament): 26 October

• Bulgaria (National parliament): 27 October

Polling Highlights 

Want to stay informed about any polls published across the continent? Check out Europe Elects' Polling average to keep up with all the latest polls. 

• Germany: the Greens (GRÜNE-G/EFA) have polled their lowest level of support since December 2017, achieving just 9.5% in a recent INSA poll.

• Georgia: Centre-left, conservative Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia (GD~S&D|ECR) is polling at 32%, according to a recent Edison Research poll. If repeated in October’s parliament election, this would be a 16-point drop in support for the party and be its worst-ever electoral result.

• Greece: Left-wing to centre-left SYRIZA (LEFT) has continued to see its support fall. According to the latest Metron Analysis poll, the party sits at just 8.8%. This is the party’s lowest polling result since April 2012 and if repeated in an election it would be its lowest election result since 2009. The party is amidst a leadership contest as Stefanos Kasselakis, who was elected as party leader in September 2023, was ousted by the party’s Central Committee. Meanwhile, far-right Voice of Reason (FL -PfE) has kept gaining popularity, reaching a new record high of 6.3% in the latest Interview poll.

• Hungary: Centre-right Respect and Freedom (TISZA-EPP) reached an all-time record high of 38.9% in the Medián poll released earlier this month. The party won 29.60% of the vote in this year’s European Parliament election.

• Italy: left-wing Green Left Alliance (AVS-LEFT|G/EFA) reaches a record high of 7.8% — the highest in their polling history — in the latest Ixè poll. If repeated in an election, this would be the best result for a left-wing alliance since 2001.

• Moldova: Social conservative Our Party (PN-*) achieves a new record high of 13.4% in the latest iData poll. In the 2021 election, it ran as part of the BERU shared list, along with the right-wing Homeland Party (PPP-*), and obtained 4.1%.

• Netherlands: centre-right New Social Contract (NSC-EPP) of Pieter Omtzigt reaches a record low at 3 seats, roughly 2% of the vote, in the latest Verian poll.

  The party was founded in late August 2023 and was the country's largest — with around 19% in Europe Elects' polling average — as late as October 2023.

• Türkiye: Right-wing Justice and Development Party (AKP~NI) of President Erdoğan has earned 23.8% in a SONAR poll this month. If repeated in an election, this would be the party‘s worst result in its 23-year history. Meanwhile, the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP-S&D) has reached a new record high of 36.2% in the same poll.

Latest Podcast 

No new podcast this month!

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Corrections: Last month’s newsletter erroneously said that Maxime Prévot had succeeded Bart De Wever as formateur in Belgium this August. He was actually appointed to be a mediator between political parties and not given the mandate himself.