Europeans just went to the polls to elect a new European Parliament (EP). Now that the results are in, we can draw some insights for the state of democracy in Europe.

European elections 2019 – General atmosphere outside the European Parliament in Brussels, , photo

First, at almost 51 percent, electoral participation was up. This was a more than 8 percentage point increase over the 2014 elections which saw a historic low in turnout. The 2019 elections also broke a trend of ever declining turnout that has been observed since the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979.

The increase in turnout is particularly interesting when viewed in conjunction with the second insight, support for the anti-European forces in the new European Parliament. While their support was slightly up from the 2014 elections, anti-European forces still command only about a quarter of the seats in the EP. This means that integrationist parties hold a solid majority to push forward with European legislation.

Third, the less-than expected increase in votes for the Euro-Skeptics was accompanied by the strong showing of the Greens. Green parties gained 17 seats over the 2014 elections, making them now the fourth-strongest group behind the Liberals who also saw strong gains, up by more than 30 seats (this strong result is in part due to French president Emanuel Macron’s new party that joined the liberal group in the EP). On the flipside, traditional parties of the center left and center right lost massively and can no longer secure a majority in the EP by themselves.

The fourth insight is that there is no uniformity in the results across Europe. While far right anti-integrationist forces fared less well than expected, these parties were strong in some Eastern European countries (Hungary and Poland) as well as in some member countries in Western Europe (particularly Italy where the far right Lega became the strongest party and France, where the rebranded Front National has surpassed Macron’s La République en Marche.). Socialists and Social Democrats, having generally fared very poorly, were strong in Spain and in the Netherlands.

Overall, the increase in turnout is good news for European democracy. The fact that new pro-European coalitions have become possible (and necessary) will make European democracy livelier. The parliament has already signaled that it will not bow to the will of the member states should they decide to nominate a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission that was not a Spitzenkandidat (a lead candidate for the office), of one of the EP parties. This is a sign for the new-found self-confidence on the part of the EP, even though the EP has somewhat softened its stance, refraining from making veto threats. Finally, the continued presence of anti-integrationist forces in the EP means that, somewhat paradoxically, these forces will be represented in the only body of the European Union that is made up by directly elected representatives of the EU’s citizens. This, by and in itself, is a remarkable achievement of European integration and European democracy.