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Far-right parties have made significant gains in the EU elections, with a strong showing in Germany that will help tilt the European parliament towards a more anti-immigration and anti-green stance, according to preliminary estimates from five countries.
Ultraconservative and nationalist parties were estimated to have won at least 33 of the 174 seats available in Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, according to official exit polls from those countries, up from 19 seats at the last election in 2019.
The surge, at the expense of liberal and Green parties, if reflected in the final result for the whole continent, would complicate European commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as head of the EU’s executive.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 16 of the country’s 96 seats, and Austria’s hard-right Freedom party (FPÖ) topped the country’s results to win six of the country’s 20 seats, the data forecast.
The AfD defied recent scandals to take second place with 16.4 per cent of the vote after the opposition centre right CDU-CSU and beat all three parties in chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition. It was one of the AfD’s best results in a nationwide election.
“This is a super result . . . a record result,” said party co-leader Tino Chrupalla. “Our voters remained loyal to us and we beat the party of the chancellor, the Greens and the liberals.”
Its success came despite a flurry of negative headlines, many of them concerning its lead candidate in the election, Maximilian Krah. His staffer was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, and he sparked outrage by downplaying the crimes of the SS. The number two on the AfD’s list is meanwhile being investigated for corruption.
But some in the party will be disappointed by the result. Polls earlier in the year had put it on 22-23 per cent, but its approval ratings slumped after reports that some of its senior members had met with ultranationalist ideologues to discuss plans to deport millions of people with immigrant backgrounds from Germany, even those with German passports.
The result was a disaster for the three parties in the fragile Berlin coalition — the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the liberal FDP. The Greens saw their share of the vote slump by more than 8 percentage points while the SPD garnered just 14 per cent — its worst-ever result in a nationwide vote.
The opposition centre-right CDU-CSU won the election with 29 seats, the SPD won just 14, the Greens 12 and the FDP 5.
Bas Eickhout, the co-lead candidate for the Greens, said Germany had a “very fragmented landscape” with many non-affiliated lawmakers who could end up swelling the Greens’ numbers.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV) won 7 seats, up from 1 last time, although that gave it slightly fewer seats than a Labour/Green party alliance.
Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s party grouping was set to win 50 seats of the 174 available in the five countries, the data forecast.
“We are once again the strongest force in Germany,” von der Leyen said in response to the early projections from her home country. “Today we celebrate. From tomorrow we will continue working.”
To secure a second term as commission president, von der Leyen needs a majority of the 720-seat parliament to back her. Final results are expected early on Monday.
Additional reporting by Laura Dubois in Brussels
This is a developing story.
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