EU: Over 400 million citizens were called to vote in the European Union elections

teleSUR English

The European Parliament is one step away from having its new deputies, after several days of elections in the member countries of the European Union. For the latest details we talked to our correspondent Yunus Soner. TeleSUR

Transcript

00:00And, as the European Parliament elections come to an end, we welcome our correspondent

00:06Junus Söner with the latest updates.

00:09Hello, Junus, welcome back to From the South.

00:13Hello, good evening from Berlin, the capital of Germany.

00:18The majority of the countries have finished voting and we have already some preliminary

00:24results that indicate a clear tendency.

00:29To begin with, we have Germany is the country that sends 96 deputies to the European Parliament,

00:37so let's start with Germany.

00:39In Germany we have the Christian Democratic Union, the traditional conservative party

00:45ending up as first with 30%, but followed by the Alternative for Germany party, which

00:52is the right-wing populist, extreme right-wing, that's a matter of debate, ending up with

01:0016% of the votes, 5% up from their last time, as the second biggest force in Germany.

01:08The governing coalition here of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, all

01:14lost, with the Greens losing 8% in comparison to the last election in 2019.

01:23A similar tendency to the right we see in France, which sends 81 deputies to the 720

01:32members of the European Assembly Parliament, and here the Rassemblement National, the party

01:38of Marine Le Pen, has won, according to preliminary results, 31.5% ending up the first country.

01:47A lot of people say this vote indicates that in the next presidential candidates Le Pen

01:54will also win the presidency in France.

01:57Another country with a right-wing populist victory is Austria, that sends 20 members

02:04to the European Parliament.

02:05Here the Libertarian Austrian party has gained 27% of the votes, followed by the traditional

02:12conservative party and the Social Democrats, both left behind with 23%.

02:19The Netherlands, 31 members to the European Parliament, here the coalition of the Social

02:25Democrats and Greens succeeded to be the number one, but the Party of Liberty, another right-wing

02:32populist party, has finished only second to them, gaining 17%, also an increase of

02:39votes and also an increase of deputies in the European Parliament.

02:43Generally speaking, we have a clear tendency that especially in Central Europe, in Germany,

02:50France, Austria, Netherlands, the right-wing or extreme right-wing parties are gaining

02:58more seats.

02:59That places pressure on the traditional fractions in the European Parliament.

03:05For instance, the European People's Party fraction in the European Parliament is the

03:10conservative fraction, the established conservative fraction, which now will be challenged by

03:16the identity and democracy fraction to which these right-wing populist parties mostly belong,

03:23among them Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement Nationale.

03:26That means forces within the European Parliament that are Eurosceptical, that demand a strengthening

03:34of national states' authority versus Brussels, are gaining strength.

03:40The place I am here is the party center of the Alliance of Sarah Wagenknecht, a newly

03:48founded party here in Germany from the left, but that shares certain points with these

03:54parties in terms of seeking peace and diplomacy in Ukraine and limiting Brussels' authority

04:01as well.

04:02This party was founded in 2024, January, some months ago, and gained from zero 6% in these

04:09elections and will send also six deputies to the European Parliament.

04:14So it's a kind of weird exception to this general trend.

04:19But this general trend is obvious, which states that the European Parliament, those

04:25political forces which demand a relaxation of the European Union, which reject transferring

04:33authority to Brussels, are gaining strength.

04:37And here in Germany, even some political forces are calling for renewed national elections,

04:44which is a far long way to go.

04:47But it's clear that the governing coalition in Germany has lost a lot of votes.

04:57Thank you, Juno Söder, for your complete update.

05:00We will see how these elections result by Monday.

05:05We have now a final short break.

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