EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT:THE EUROPEAN People's Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED) should maintain its position as the biggest political group in the European Parliament after this weekend's elections.
New forecasts show the centre-right EPP-ED group will claim 262 of the 736 seats on offer across all 27 member states. This represents a slight fall on the 288 MEPs it has in the current parliament, but that parliament is made up of 785 MEPs, which means that, in percentage terms, the group’s share of the vote would slip by just 2 per cent to 35 per cent.
The forecast from the Predict 09 website is based on opinion poll and historical trends data compiled from all EU states. If the result is replicated in the official count on Sunday night, it would probably result in incumbent European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso winning the backing of a majority of MEPs to stay on for a further five-year term.
The nearest rival to the EPP-ED is the Socialists’ group in the parliament, which is forecast to return 194 MEPs. This would be a disappointing result for the Socialists, which currently have 217 MEPs in the parliament and were hoping to tap into public anger over the financial and economic crisis.
The Green group in the parliament is predicted to pick up anti-establishment votes by claiming 50 MEPs, up from 43 MEPs in the current parliament. The number of eurosceptic and extreme-right MEPs sitting in the new parliament is expected to remain about the same as it is now, at 52 MEPs. This represents a rise in percentage terms because there are fewer MEPs overall.
The Liberals, which Fianna Fáil plans to join post-election, would see their representation cut to 85 seats from 100 seats. Fianna Fáil’s current group, the Union for Europe of the Nations, is expected to be taken over by a new anti-federalist Conservative group made up of the British Tories, the Czech Civic Democrats and the Law and Justice in Poland, among others.
Libertas is forecast to do badly in the elections, picking up just a single seat in France through its link with the Movement for France. This is significantly lower than the anticipated 100 seats predicted by founder Declan Ganley, who has invested significantly in a pan-European campaign.
The Predict 09 website was developed jointly by political scientists at the London School of Economics and Trinity College Dublin.