Olan McEvoy
Research expert covering the European Union for society, economy, and politics.
Get in touch with us nowElections to the European Parliament: rising Euroscepticism
The first four elections to the European Parliament (1979, 1984, 1989, and 1994) were all won by the center-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group, reaching their historic high-point in 1994 when the group took almost 35 percent of the seats in the parliament. Since 1999, however, the balance has shifted towards the center-right European People's Party (EPP), who have won five successive elections in a row, albeit with a consistently declining share of members of the European Parliament (MEPs), with the EPP having less than a quarter of all MEPs in 2019. The 2019 election marked the first time that these two party groups, the EPP and the S&D, did not command a majority of seats in parliament, with many other party groups gaining at their expense. The liberal-centrist group Renew Europe (formerly known as ALDE), while consistently commanding around 10 percent of the vote since the first election in 1979, grew to a historic high of almost 15 percent in 2019, while the center-left environmentalist group Greens/EFA also achieved their best ever result at roughly 10 percent.The right-wing eurosceptic group European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the far-right populist group Identity and Democracy (ID) have also achieved successes in recent elections, with the ECR growing from 54 seats in the group's first election in 2009 to 62 seats in 2019. Identity and Democracy contested their first European election in 2019, securing almost 10 percent of the seats in parliament by capitalizing on the nationalist and populist surge which has been seen across Europe since the early 2010s. While issues such as immigration and dissatisfaction with the European Union's elites play into the hand of the right-wing groups in the run up to the 2024 European elections, the two right wing groups are set to only increase their collective vote share from 19 percent in 2019, to around 23 percent according to opinion polling in 2023. On the other hand, the salience of issues related to poverty, social exclusion and the cost of living to European voters is set to also give a boost to the far-left of the political spectrum, represented by the GUE/NGL group in the European parliament, with the group forecast to increase its number of MEPs from 41 to 45 in 2024.
A democratic deficit?
The European Parliament has three main powers according to the treaties of the European Union: legislative powers, budgetary powers, and supervisory powers. The parliament has more limited legislative powers than most national parliaments, which can introduce, amend, and approve laws subject to some external oversight. Legislation in the European Parliament is instead proposed by the European Commission, the EU's highest bureaucratic body, which is either rejected, approved, or amended by the parliament along with the European Council. The parliament's budgetary powers are mostly related to establishing the EU's annual budget along with the council and approving the long-term multiannual financial framework (MFF). In supervisory matters, the parliament has the power to elect the president of the commission, as well having the possibility to hold a vote of no confidence in the commission as a whole, which if it were to pass would require the commission to resign (this option has yet to be used by the parliament).Additionally, certain legislative issues are considered beyond the remit of the European Parliament - the so-called "special legislative procedure" in which case the council becomes in effect the sole legislative body, with the parliament only needed for consulting on the issue. The issues included under this procedure are: foreign and security policy, police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, some financial and budgetary provisions, and adopting coordinated measures in the area of social security. The limited legislative powers of the European Parliament have led some to criticize the European Union as being undemocratic, with the parliament acting only to legitimize decisions taken by the commission and member states. A majority of EU citizens in fact favor increasing the importance of the parliament within the EU, with this being seen as a way to ease dissatisfaction with the 'democratic deficit' within the union. While citizens tend to be unsatisfied with the parliament's current powers, most EU citizens have a neutral or positive perception of the parliament.
