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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Lili Bayer in Brussels, Yohannes Lowe and Jonathan Yerushalmy

‘Conservative values will impact EU policymaking like never before,’ says rightwing group

European Union Emmanuel Macron France Marine Le Pen Ursula von der Leyen National Rally Karl Nehammer Péter Magyar EPP Fidesz

Summary of the day

  • The latest provisional results for the European parliament elections put the centre-right European People’s party at 186 seats, the Socialists and Democrats at 135, Renew Europe at 79, the European Conservatives and Reformists group at 73, the far-right Identity and Democracy at 58, the Greens at 53 and the Left at 36.

  • A spokesperson for Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany will not follow France and hold a snap election despite the ruling coalition’s dismal performance in the EU election.

  • France’s foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said “yesterday’s result is a lightning bolt in political life, we must take that into account.”

  • Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president and lead candidate for the centre-right European People’s party, argued that the extreme right and left did not do as well as expected. “We had a strong win, as European People’s party – so this shows that you can withstand the pressure from the extremes and be successful,” von der Leyen said.

  • The European Conservatives and Reformists party congratulated its member parties and said “conservative values will impact EU policymaking like never before in the European Union’s history.”

  • Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister and the EU’s most Kremlin-friendly leader, has said that “Europe’s political landscape has shifted to the right and towards peace.”

  • Giorgia Meloni is in good spirits but so is Italy’s opposition leader Elly Schlein, who managed to salvage Italy’s centre-left Democratic party (PD) from the doldrums in the European elections and narrow the gap with the prime minister’s Brothers of Italy. “Meloni, we’re coming,” Schlein said in a press conference.

  • Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, seized on the European election results as a means of continuing his attacks on Spain’s socialist-led government, which has infuriated the Netanyahu administration by criticising the war in Gaza and recognising a Palestinian state.

  • Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s labour minister and one of the country’s three deputy prime ministers, announced that she is stepping down as leader of the leftwing Sumar alliance following its disappointing results on Sunday.

  • Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, took a jab at the French president and German chancellor. “Well, well, respected by no one Macron and Scholz, have you seen the EU parliament elections results?” he wrote on social media.

  • Argentina’s far-right, self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, offered his upper-case congratulations to the European far right.

Europe 'shifted to the right and towards peace,' Russia-friendly Hungarian leader says

Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister and the EU’s most Kremlin-friendly leader, has said that “Europe’s political landscape has shifted to the right and towards peace.”

“We will build on these results in the coming months to achieve our goals, as Hungary takes over the Presidency of the EU,” he added.

While Orbán’s ruling party got the most votes in Hungary, its performance – at 44.79% – was much lower than the previous couple of European elections. A new opposition movement, Tisza, has done well, winning nearly 30% of the vote.

Updated

Latvia's prime minister nominates Dombrovskis for European Commission role

Evika Siliņa, the Latvian prime minister, said she is nominating Valdis Dombrovskis as the country’s EU commissioner for the next term.

Dombrovskis has already been serving as the current Commission’s executive vice-president, working on economy and trade issues.

Updated

“I will not let you down,” the European parliament president, Roberta Metsola, told her voters in Malta, where she enjoyed strong support.

The far-right National Rally’s Jordan Bardella has signalled an openness to working with other like-minded figures ahead of the national election France.

Latest provisional results for European elections

Here are the latest provisional results for the European elections

Updated

The far-right Reconquête’s Marion Maréchal is holding talks with the National Rally about the upcoming French elections.

The Austrian far-right Freedom party’s Harald Vilimsky has thanked voters for an “historic result”.

What's next for Orbán's Fidesz?

We asked Balázs Orbán, political director for the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, which European political grouping Fidesz will seek to join now that the elections are over, and whether they already have assurances that Fidesz will be accepted.

“We are considering joining the European Conservatives and Reformists Group,” the political director said in an email today, adding however that “we would prefer a broader cooperation on the European right.”

“The next few days and weeks of negotiations will be key in making our final decision,” he said.

Asked whether the Hungarian government will re-evaluate its political strategy or any policies as a result of the opposition Tisza’s strong performance in the European election, he said:

Winning an election is a clear sign that the political strategy works. If Hungary had held its parliamentary elections yesterday, the governing parties would have secured a 2/3 majority once again, marking the fifth consecutive victory since 2010.

'Conservative values will impact EU policymaking like never before', ECR says

The European Conservatives and Reformists party, which includes members such as Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law and Justice, congratulated parties and said “conservative values will impact EU policymaking like never before in the European Union’s history.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers from the far-right Alternative for Germany decided today that Maximilian Krah, their controversial lead candidate who was banned from the party’s campaign, will be excluded from its delegation in the European parliament, DPA reported.

Latest provisional results

And here are the updated provisional results for the European elections:

What's next for Hungarian politics?

The European election has marked a major shift in Hungary’s political landscape.

While Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party won the most votes, its performance was very poor compared to recent European elections. Fidesz took 44.79% yesterday, compared to 52.56% in 2019 and 51.48% in 2014.

Tisza, a party led by former government insider Péter Magyar, took 29.6%, despite being a new movement with no resources or party apparatus – and despite the fact that just a few months ago, virtually nobody had even heard of Magyar.

“I think it shows that there is a clear appetite for something new,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, a programme officer at the German Marshall Fund.

Magyar, who used to be married to Orbán’s former justice minister, became a sensation in Hungary after he began openly criticising the government in February. His move came following the resignation of Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák, after it emerged that she pardoned a man convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case.

A former diplomat, Magyar cast himself as a centrist, mixing nationalist rhetoric with an anti-corruption platform and pledging to improve education and health care.

Ahead of the election, he travelled across the country, visiting small towns that rarely get much attention from national political figures. And his social media savvy helped reach voters in a country where the opposition’s access to traditional media is limited.

While Orbán’s politics is based on an ‘us vs. them’ approach, Magyar has taken a completely different tone, telling voters he wants to bring together right-wing, left-wing and liberal Hungarians in a bid to challenge Orbán’s position.

Sunday’s results translate into 11 seats for Fidesz and 7 for Tisza. Only two other groupings won seats: a coalition of social democrats and greens took 2 seats, and an extreme-right party took 1 seat. Other parties, including the liberal Momentum, didn’t manage to take even a single seat.

“For the opposition, it is bad news, indeed – but it also is bad news for Fidesz, because Fidesz’s strategy against Magyar hasn’t worked,” Végh said.

“They have not faced a situation before where they do have a single strong challenger,” she said. “Fidesz will need a new strategy as well, how to deal with this new situation,” she added.

The Hungarian government, however, has insisted that they had a good day, with Orbán declaring victory.

Asked if Magyar’s performance impacts Orbán’s position ahead of the 2026 national election, a senior Hungarian government official said “it’s too early to say.”

And asked if there are worries inside the Hungarian government about Magyar, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “not really.”

“He is more dangerous to the opposition at the moment than the government,” they added.

Updated

Díaz steps down as Sumar leader

Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s labour minister and one of the country’s three deputy prime ministers, has announced that she is stepping down as leader of the leftwing Sumar alliance following its disappointing results on Sunday. The platform, which was assembled to campaign in last year’s general election, won just three seats - only one more than its rivals in Podemos.

The platform fared so badly that the United Left coalition, one of Sumar’s core members, failed to secure a single seat on Sunday.

“These last elections have acted as a mirror,” Díaz said in a streamed statement on Monday afternoon. “People don’t make mistakes when they vote - and neither do they make mistakes if they decide not to vote. That’s always our responsibility - and, without a doubt, in this case, that’s my responsibility. The people have spoken and I’m taking responsibility. I’ve decided to leave my post as Sumar coordinator. There needs to be a debate and my decision paves the way for that debate.”

Díaz will continue with her ministerial duties.

Updated

Giorgia Meloni is in good spirits but so is opposition leader Elly Schlein, who managed to salvage Italy’s centre-left Democratic party (PD) from the doldrums in the European elections and narrow the gap with the prime minister’s Brothers of Italy.

“Meloni, we’re coming,” Schlein said during a press conference on Monday. It was in response to Meloni’s victory swipe at the opposition: “They saw us coming but were unable to stop us”.

The PD won 24.1% of the vote, up from the 19% gained in the 2022 Italian general election.

Schlein said she had spoken to Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party scored almost 29%, and the pair congratulated each other.

“We didn’t stop them but we have certainly slowed them down,” she said. “The European elections usually strengthen whoever is in power, but they never arrived at the 30% threshold and we surpassed 20%.”

Schlein, elected PD leader in February 2023, has struggled to unite the party amid fears she is taking it too far to the left, but supporters say Sunday’s result defies her critics.

“This is an excellent result for the Democratic party and confirms that the line chosen by leader Elly Schlein is the right one,” said PD politician Laura Boldrini. “We are the fastest growing party and the second [biggest] in the country.”

The far-right Identity and Democracy party is celebrating election results in Belgium.

'You can withstand the pressure from the extremes,' von der Leyen says

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president and lead candidate for the centre-right European People’s party, argued that the extreme right and left did not do as well as expected.

“We had a strong win, as European People’s party – so this shows that you can withstand the pressure from the extremes and be successful while being in charge – we don’t say it’s a government – but while being in charge of the responsibility of the European Union,” she said.

Updated

Penny Pritzer, who is leading the US delegation at a Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin this week, played down the potential impact of the strong showing for the far right in Sunday’s election on Europe’s resolve to aid Kyiv.

“Even in this election super year where half the world’s population is voting... the international community has not and will not lose interest or faith in its support for Ukraine’s fight against the aggressor,” she told reporters in the German capital. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it though, the war remains tough.”

She said Washington believed European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s assessment that a majority remained for staying the course.

“I’m going to quote President von der Leyen and just say the center is holding and the result comes with great responsibilities for the parties of the centre and as she said, her aim is to continue on this path with those who are pro-European, pro-Ukrainian, pro-rule of law,” Pritzer said.

A street mural depicting Giorgia Meloni as the Madonna has appeared in the centre of Milan in the wake of her victory in the European election.

Called “Santa Giorgia”, the mural by artist aleXsandro Palombo features the Italian prime minister with a halo of the European flag and cradling a breastfeeding baby.

Meloni emerged even stronger from the elections after her Brothers of Italy party won almost 29% of the vote, beating forecasts.

In early May, a mural of Meloni depicted as Marilyn Monroe painted onto a street wall in Milan was soon vandalised with the message: “It’s an insult to Marilyn, you consider yourself ‘pro life’ but you let immigrants die at sea”.

Spanish voters 'punished' Sánchez and Díaz, says Israeli foreign minister

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, has seized on the European election results as a means of continuing his attacks on Spain’s socialist-led government, which has infuriated the Netanyahu administration by criticising the war in Gaza and recognising a Palestinian state.

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), led by the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was narrowly beaten on Sunday by the conservative People’s party (PP), dropping from 21 seats to 20. The PP won 22 seats.

Sánchez’s coalition partners in the leftwing Sumar platform - led by the deputy PM and labour minister Yolanda Díaz - won three seats, while his erstwhile allies in Podemos dropped from six seats to two.

“The Spanish people have punished @sanchezcastejon and @Yolanda_Diaz_ coalition with a resounding defeat in the elections,” Katz wrote on X. “It turns out that embracing Hamas murderers and rapists doesn’t pay off.”

At the end of May, Katz accused Sánchez of being “complicit in inciting the murder of the Jewish people and war crimes” after Spain officially recognised the state of Palestine.

Díaz, meanwhile, was criticised for using the controversial slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in a video statement last month.

Díaz later denied allegations of antisemitism and clarified her remarks, saying: “We’ve always had the same position, the recognition of two states from the river to the sea, which share an economy, which share rights, and which, above all, share a peaceful future.”

Writing on X at the time, Katz said: “Prime minister Sánchez, by not sacking Yolanda Díaz and announcing the recognition of the Palestinian state you are complicit in inciting the murder of the Jewish people and war crimes.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, met a delegation from Spain’s far-right Vox party at the end of May, which was headed by Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader.

Abascal told the Israeli prime minister he would reverse Spain’s recognition of Palestine “when he is prime minister”.

Vox won six seats on Sunday, two more than in 2019.

'To the ash heap of history': Russia gloats at EU elections results

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, took a jab at the French president and German chancellor today.

“Well, well, respected by no one Macron and Scholz, have you seen the EU parliament elections results?” he wrote on social media.

“Wait and see what comes next! Time to retire. To the ash heap of history!” he added.

King accepts Belgian prime minister's resignation

Alexander De Croo, the Belgian prime minister, has resigned. Belgium’s king, Philippe, accepted his resignation.

“I would like to wholeheartedly thank our voters and activists. The election result is a disappointment. I take responsibility for it,” De Croo said.

Belgians voted in federal, regional and European elections yesterday.

Updated

Nicolas Schmit, the European socialists’ lead candidate in the election, thanked European “for the trust that you have put into our social-democratic family by making us the largest progressive political group.”

Greens call for transparency in Romania counting

The Greens group said it is “closely monitoring EU Election count in Romania” after “reports of polling station irregularities, especially in university towns.”

Here are the latest provisional results

No snap election in Germany, says Scholz's spokesperson

Germany will not follow France and hold a snap election despite the ruling coalition’s dismal performance in the EU election, a spokesperson for Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.

“The regular election date is next autumn. And that’s what we plan to do,” Steffen Hebestreit told a government press conference, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Scholz’s coalition suffered heavy losses at the European elections, with all three parties in his government trailing the conservatives and the far right, preliminary results showed.

The chancellor’s Social Democrats (SPD) scored their worst result in history at 14%, third behind the far-right AfD at about 16%, and well behind the conservative CDU-CSU bloc’s 30%. The Greens recorded 12%, while the liberal FDP took 5%.

The result sparked calls from opposition parties for Scholz to follow the lead of Emmanuel Macron and call a snap election.

You can see all of the results from the European elections here. You can see the summary for the new European parliament, the shape of the results by bloc and individual party breakdowns by country.

Result from European elections is a 'lightning bolt in political life,' France's foreign minister says

France’s foreign minister, Stephane Sejourne, has been quoted as saying this in reaction to president Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision to call the parliamentary elections:

He said:

I think it’s an election of clarification to lift the roadblocks. Today the French electoral landscape shows that 40% of those who voted chose a far-right list … yesterday’s result is a lightning bolt in political life, we must take that into account.

Sejourne – who is also the chief of Macron’s centrist Renaissance party – told AFP earlier that the party would not challenge outgoing MPs from the traditional left and right for their seats if they were prepared to “invest in a clear project” around the presidential majority.

Updated

Protests broke out in Paris on Sunday as Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won a sweeping victory in the European parliament elections, gaining 32% of the vote.

As the results came in, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced he was dissolving the national assembly and called for legislative elections to be held on 30 June and 7 July. Demonstrators chanted anti-fascist slogans in Paris’s Place de la République.

You can watch the full video here:

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has already begun trying to piece together a coalition (see earlier post at 09:00am for more information on the challenges she faces as she tries to secure a second term as commission president).

Von der Leyen emerged strengthened from the four-day election across 27 countries that concluded on Sunday, as her centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) gained seats.

But to secure a second five-year term, she needs the support of a majority of the EU’s national leaders and a working majority in the European parliament.

Provisional results on Monday gave the main parties that backed von der Leyen last time – the EPP, socialists and liberals – a total of 402 seats in the 720-member chamber.

“I have been working on building a broad majority of pro-European forces. And this is why, as of tomorrow, we will be reaching out to the big political families that we have formed the platform with,” she told reporters in Brussels on Sunday evening.

Von der Leyen indicated she would talk to others after those initial consultations, keeping her options open.

Von der Leyen said she aims to work with those who are “pro-European, pro-Ukraine and pro-rule of law” – a description that she has made clear she thinks applies to Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy but not to some other far-right parties.

However, the socialists, liberals and Greens have all declared they will not work with the far right, making von der Leyen’s coalition-building efforts extremely delicate.

Meloni also kept her options open on Monday, saying it was too early to decide on a second term for von der Leyen.

Key event

Kate Connolly is the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent

Analysis of last night’s results showed that the AfD profited from the election being opened up in Germany for the first time to 16 and 17-year-olds, with 17% of 16-24-year-olds who voted choosing the far-right populists. A similar number of them also chose the CDU/CSU conservative alliance.

Political observers say there is no denying the shift to the right among young people given the AfD’s significant share of the youth vote.

Other parties, which have previously done well in securing the young vote, such as the Greens, found their support among young voters drop significantly, which is being put down specifically to a general fragmentation of the young progressive front as well as reflecting the general decreasing importance being given to environmental issues across the electorate.

In Germany, just as in France, Belgium and Portugal, right-wing populists were more successful among young voters than they have been at any other previous EU election.

Germany’s voter turnout at just under 65% was the highest it has been at a European election since unification.

Updated

AfD make gains in both EU and local polls

Kate Connolly is the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent

Having made the biggest gains of the night in Germany, coming second behind the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and more than doubling its previous result, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) also scored very well in separate, local elections held in eight German states on Sunday.

The populists won local elections in the eastern states of Brandenburg – with 25.7% of the vote (an increase of 9.8 percentage points), in Mecklenburg Vorpommern with 25.6% – almost doubling their previous performance there – and in Saxony Anhalt, where they secured 28.1% of the vote, an increase of 11.6 percentage points from 2019.

Voters in Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt voted yesterday on both a local and EU level.

Pollsters said the success of the AfD in both EU and local polls is likely to give them a boost of confidence ahead of crucial upcoming votes.

The results are an indicator as to how the populists could fare in this autumns’ state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony as well as Thuringia, where it is being predicted they could enter state level government for the first time.

Updated

Spanish MEP and leader of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European parliament Iratxe García said that the Spanish Socialist Workers party (POSE) “continues to be the containment dam of the extreme right”.

Spain’s Conservative People’s party took 34.2% of the vote and 22 seats last night, while the PSOE took 30.2% and 20 seats, with the far-right Vox party finishing third with 9.6% and six seats, up two from 2019.

“From the government of Spain, the European parliament and the rest of the institutions. We continue to govern for the majority. Now it’s more Europe,” wrote in a celebratory post on X.

The Kremlin said on Monday that it would closely watch forthcoming snap elections in France called by Emmanuel Macron given what it called the French leadership’s “openly hostile” attitude towards Russia.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was following the results of the European parliamentary elections in which far-right and Eurosceptic parties made major gains.

The Le Figaro newspaper reports that the head of France’s International Olympic Committee has said the elections won’t affect the games in Paris this summer, which will run from 26 July to 11 August.

Thomas Bach said the elections are “a democratic process that won’t disrupt the games”.

Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, appears less sure, describing the decision to send France to the polls just before the Olympics as “extremely troubling”.

Angela Giuffrida is the Guardian’s Rome correspondent

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has emerged even stronger from the European elections, with her Brothers of Italy party beating forecasts by winning almost 29% of the vote.

It is a remarkable result for a party that scraped just 6.4% in the 2019 vote and is an increase on its gains in the Italian general election in 2022.

“They saw us coming but were unable to stop us,” Meloni, 47, told supporters. “It is more beautiful than 2022.”

The premier, who is hosting the G7 summit in Puglia this week, is especially jubilant because her government is now being viewed as somewhat of a beacon of stability in a continent shaken by significant far-right gains in key countries such as France and Germany.

It is an unusual position for Italy, famous for its turbulent, short-lived governments, to be in while establishing Meloni as a ‘kingmaker’ in the European parliament.

Meloni has been president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a role she has used to nurture a more moderate, acceptable image of Brothers of Italy since 2020.

Since taking power in October 2022, she has been even more careful to distance herself from her party’s neofascist past and has shaped into a leader credited for her pragmatism, making friends with European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, along the way.

But now the question is whether she will join forces with von der Leyen’s European People’s Party, which has pledged to “build a bastion against the extremes”, or side with France’s Marine Le Pen in the Identity and Democracy group.

Tommaso Foti, the lower house whip for Brothers of Italy, told the Italian media that Meloni would decide whether to support von der Leyen on the basis of Italy’s interests. The unknown right now is how she will play it with Le Pen, with whom relations, until recently, were fraught.

“France and Germany are in crisis,” said Nicola Procaccini, the ECR’s deputy leader. “These elections clearly reinforce Giorgia Meloni, who now leads the healthiest government among Europe’s main governments.”

Updated

Lisa O’Carroll is in Brussels

Ireland is the only country that has not returned any results yet, the European parliament spokesperson has said.

“Where there is a preferential vote, you need to wait a little bit more. My guess is in the next one, two days you will get probably the nature of more than 90% of the members,” he told reporters at this morning’s briefing.

The provisional results, as of 10.30am, include final results for some countries and provisional results for others with Ireland the only country with no results.

Lisa O’Carroll is in Brussels

The latest press conference in the European parliament puts turnout at 51%.

This is slightly better than five years ago, with increases in at least 14 EU member states, including 3.4 more points in Germany, 4.2 more points in the Netherlands, 6.7 in Portugal, 7.7 in the Czech Republic, 15 more points in Hungary, 12 more points in Slovenia and 9.6 more points in Slovakia.

Lorenzo Tondo is in Palermo

Ilaria Salis, an Italian anti-fascist activist detained in a prison in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis, in a case that has sparked tensions between Rome and Budapest, is now an EU lawmaker, the hard left Green and Left Alliance announced on Sunday night.

Her election could see her granted immunity and released from jail.

Last January, images of Salis, 39, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, with her hands cuffed and chained and her feet locked together as she sat in court, made the front pages of Italy’s newspapers and triggered a formal diplomatic protest to Hungary from the Italian government. The woman was arrested in Budapest in February last year following a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally.

Salis was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme leftwing organisation. She denies the charges, which could see her jailed for up to 11 years.

In a letter to her lawyer, she detailed the conditions she had faced since her arrest: cells infested with rats and bugs, not being allowed to wash for days at a time, and a lack of urgent medical care.

A year after Salis’s arrest a mural was painted on a wall imagining her death by hanging, as a far-right march commemorating Nazi forces in the second world war passed through Budapest.

Last April, Salis has accepted a candidacy in the European elections with the Greens and Left Alliance which won about 6.8% on Sunday. In May she was granted house arrest in Budapest.

Salis should now benefit from parliamentary immunity and thus obtain release from prison, leading to a suspension of criminal proceedings against her.

Updated

Summary of the day so far...

  • France is braced for its “most consequential” election in decades, France’s finance minister said, after the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, stunned politicians and the public by announcing snap legislative elections following a drubbing at the hands of the far-right National Rally (RN) in Sunday’s European parliamentary elections. The RN won about 32% of the vote on Sunday, more than double the 15% or so scored by Macron’s allies, according to exit polls. The Socialists on 14% came within a whisker of the Macron group. The legislative vote will take place on 30 June – less than a month before the start of the Paris Olympics – with a second round on 7 July.

  • Far-right parties made gains in countries including Italy, Austria and Germany, as 360 million eligible voters chose 720 new Members of the European parliament.

  • In Germany, chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition had a bad night as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made significant gains.

  • Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s position as possible kingmaker was confirmed by exit polls that showed her hard-right Brothers of Italy party winning about 28% of the vote (with the majority of ballots counted), comfortably ahead of its centre-left rivals.

  • Despite gains for the far and radical right, the mainstream, pro-European parties were on course to hold their majority. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right party was second behind a Left-Green alliance, but appeared to have fallen short of expectations. Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in Hungary also performed below expectations. Provisional results showed his governing coalition came first with 43.7%, a worse result than the 50% predicted by opinion polls.

  • European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, whose centre-right European People’s Party scored top place in the EU parliament, said she would “build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right”. Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group.

  • The rise of euro-sceptic nationalist parties in the European election, however, is likely to complicate von der Leyen’s bid to get a second term as president of the European Commission, though she remains the frontrunner for the job.

  • Belgium is heading for a new government after a general election in which an expected surge for the far right party Vlaams Belang failed to materialise and the outgoing governing coalition headed by liberal prime minister Alexander De Croo lost its ability to form a majority.

Updated

Flemish nationalist parties dominated general elections in Belgium on Sunday.

Despite polls predicting that the far-right, anti-immigration Vlaams Belang party would become the main political force in the country, the right-wing nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) retained its first spot, with an expected 22% of the votes, according to provisional results provided by the Interior ministry.

The Vlaams Belang came in second position, with a share of 17.5%, ahead of the Socialist Voruit party, which garnered about 10.5% of the votes.

Prime minister Alexander De Croo’s liberal party, Open VLD, managed less than 7% of the votes.

“This is a very difficult evening for us, we have lost,” De Croo said. “From tomorrow I will be the outgoing prime minister. But we liberals are strong, and we will be back.”

Belgian voters returned to the national polls on Sunday, in conjunction with the EU vote and elections for regional chambers. You can read a full account of the general election in Belgium here.

De Croo will remain caretaker prime minister until a new coalition, currently involving seven parties, is formed.

Updated

The Paris stock market fell sharply on Monday after Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to call snap parliamentary elections.

The Paris CAC 40, which tracks the market’s 40 most significant stocks, fell 2.4% when it opened, while elsewhere in Europe the Frankfurt DAX and the pan-European Stoxx 600 both fell 0.7%, BBC News reports.

Key upcoming dates in European political calendar

Lisa O’Carroll is in Brussels

Ursula von der Leyen’s quest for a second term starts today with a trip to Berlin to the CDU party. A press conference is expected at 1pm (CET).

As her European People’s Party gets to work to get a majority of MEPs on board, a series of international leaders summits in the next few weeks will also be critical to get all member states.

She was expecting early endorsement from leaders at a leaders summit on 27 and 28 June in Brussels.

But she may not get public support for Emmanuel Macron ahead of the general election in France on 30 June as he may want to starve Marine Le Pen of any ammunition for her own narrative.

Key dates to follow:

  • 13 and 14 June – G7, Italy

  • 15 June – Ukraine peace conference, Switzerland. 80 countries expected to attend, with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, possibly being among the representatives.

  • 27-28 June – European Council, Brussels

  • 30 June – first round of French parliamentary elections

  • 7 July – second round of French parliamentary elections

  • 9-10 July – Nato 75th anniversary, Washington

  • 18 July – first plenary of new European parliament, Strasbourg

  • 18 July – European Political Community, Blenheim Palace, UK. The brainchild of Macron, this is the fourth meeting of 46 EU and non EU leaders at an informal setting. Previous meetings were held in Prague, Moldova and Granada in Spain.

Updated

The centre-right GERB party was on course to have won the most votes in Bulgaria’s parliamentary election, but will have to seek coalition partners to form a government, partial official results on Monday based on 64.06% of ballots counted showed.

The results from Sunday’s election, Bulgaria’s sixth in three years, showed GERB winning 23.65% of the vote.

The Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), mainly representing Bulgaria’s large ethnic Turkish minority, with 15.89% of the votes and pro-western bloc We Continue the Change (PP) with 15.08% were neck-and-neck for second place.

The ultra-nationalist Revival party stood on 14.33%, according to Reuters.

Sunday’s vote was triggered by the collapse in March of a coalition comprising GERB and the PP.

GERB leader Boyko Borissov led the country for more than a decade before losing power in 2021 after thousands took to the streets the previous year accusing him of failing to combat corruption.

The Guardian’s Lisa O’Carroll writes from Brussels that the European parliament is practically deserted this morning as workmen have moved quickly to remove the giant panoramic banners encircling the entrance, exhorting people to “use your vote”.

Updated

Giorgia Meloni says it's too early to decide on second mandate for EU's von der Leyen

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has said it is too early to give an answer regarding the possibility of a second mandate for EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Speaking on 102.5 RTL Radio on the outcome of the European parliamentary election, Meloni said the results of the vote showed that Europe needed to implement more pragmatic policies in the future, and that Italy would have a fundamental role in that.

With 96% of the ballots counted, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy won 28.8% of the vote, more than four times what it took in the last EU election in 2019 and exceeding the 26% it secured in the 2022 national ballot, when it rose to power.

Italy, which will hold 76 of the 720 seats in the new parliament, could play a crucial role deciding the balance of power in the bloc.

It means the Italian prime minister could decide the political fate of von der Leyen, and whether she receives sufficient backing to secure a second term.

  • How reliant is von der Leyen on far-right parties to secure a second term as commission president? Reuters has this analysis:

To secure another five years as boss of the EU’s executive arm, von der Leyen needs a “qualified majority” of the 27 EU leaders and also a majority in the 720-seat European parliament.

In 2019, von der Leyen barely scraped through that vote with just nine votes more than needed, despite her centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) being the biggest grouping in the legislature. She also had the backing of the second biggest, the Socialists, and the liberals, the third biggest.

The EPP remains the biggest group in parliament and first projections of seats showed that if the centre-left, liberals and Greens all vote for her, she would have more than the required majority of 361 votes.

But nationalist and euro-sceptic political groups as well as the far-right German AfD would jointly gain 22 deputies to a total of 149. Their gains could be much bigger, depending on how many of the 102 now non-affiliated members decide to formally join one of the euro-sceptic parliamentary groups.

This would leave much less room for manoeuvre for von der Leyen, especially that it is not clear how many deputies from her potential coalition might not vote for her even if their party leaders give their support.

To assure support in parliament, von der Leyen has been signalling readiness to cooperate on important issues with the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR) which groups euro-sceptic parties like Brothers of Italy, Spain’s Vox and Poland’s Law and Justice.

Updated

Lisa O’Carroll is in Brussels

There was no mention of Ireland yesterday at any stage of the EU election results in parliament.

That is because there was no exit poll and counting finished last night with no victor in any of the three constituencies. Proportional representation means it could be a long count.

There are 13 MEP seats with the ruling government parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, expected to bank returns for both the EPP and Renew groups. The two Greens are in danger.

Updated

French parliamentary election will be most consequential in the history of the Fifth Republic, minister says

France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has said that the parliamentary election will be the most consequential in the history of the Fifth Republic (a system of government in France from 1958).

“This will be the most consequential parliamentary election for France and for the French in the history of the Fifth Republic,” he told RTL radio.

“We must fight for France and for the French. We have three weeks to campaign and convince the French,” he said in a post on X.

The legislative vote will take place on 30 June, less than a month before the start of the Paris Olympics, with a second round on 7 July. The result is hard to predict.

The outcome will probably depend on how committed leftist and centre-right voters are to the idea of blocking the far-right from power.

Analysts said Emmanuel Macron’s decision (see post at 05.48) aimed to make the best of his weak position, reclaiming the initiative and forcing Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) into election mode faster than it would have liked.

Updated

Sébastien Chenu, the deputy chairman of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), is out doing the media rounds for party this morning.

“Marine Le Pen is preparing to be president of the republic,” he said.

Chenu has called for right-wing lawmakers from outside the RN to swell its ranks in its battle to beat the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and said the party’s president, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, would be its candidate for prime minister.

The RN won about 32% of French votes, more than double the 15% or so scored by Macron’s allies, according to projections, with the Socialists just behind on about 14%.

Macron took a huge risk by announcing snap parliamentary elections (on 30 June and 7 July), with many predicting another victory for the RN to become the biggest party in parliament.

If the RN wins a majority, the French president would still direct defence and foreign policy, but would lose the power to set the domestic agenda, from economic policy to security.

The upcoming parliamentary elections won’t affect Macron’s own job, as they are separate to the presidential elections. His term as president runs until 2027.

Updated

Lisa O’Carroll is in Brussels

The German Federation on Industries has warned that the rise of AfD and other far right parties will “endanger prosperity” and “social cohesion” in Europe.

Tanja Gönner, BDI general manager, said Europe needs an urgent growth plan to secure its future before damage is wrought.

She said in a statement:

The members of the EU parliament must now take responsibility and quickly agree on a strong leadership team with a growth plan for Europe.

The increase in right-wing populist MPs is a worrying signal. It means that the proportion of those who, like us, want to shape and strengthen Europe is dwindling. Anti-European parties endanger social cohesion and our prosperity.

Updated

Argentina's president congratulates advance of 'the new right parties' in Europe

Sam Jones is Madrid correspondent for the Guardian

Argentina’s far-right, self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, has offered his upper-case congratulations to the European far right.

“A TREMENDOUS ADVANCE BY THE NEW RIGHT PARTIES IN EUROPE,” he wrote on X. “Great news from the old continent … The west must once again take up the flags that made it the most prosperous civilising force in our history: the defence of life, liberty and individual property. Today, we have taken a fundamental step towards the defence of our ideas. LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT!”

Updated

Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party had secured 28.82% of the vote on Monday with 97% of all votes counted – surpassing the 26% she secured in September 2022 national elections.

The decisive victory in the European elections in Italy makes the Italian prime minister one of the few EU leaders to emerge stronger after the vote.

She had pitched the weekend elections for the European parliament as a referendum on her leadership, asking voters to write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

Italy, which will hold 76 of the 720 seats in the new parliament, will likely play a crucial role deciding the balance of power in the bloc.

In brief remarks to the media about 2:00 am, Meloni said she was “extraordinarily proud” of the result, which comes just days before she hosts G7 leaders in Puglia.

“I am proud that this nation presents itself at the G7 and in Europe with the strongest government of all,” she said.

The opposition centre-left Democratic Party came in second with 24%, while another opposition group, the 5-Star Movement, was third with 9.9% of the vote – its worst showing at a countrywide level since its creation in 2009.

Updated

Polish PM Tusk's Civic Coalition wins EU election - final results

The official results from the electoral commission in Poland have now come in.

They indicate that Polish prime minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) came first in European parliament elections with 37.1% of the vote.

The main opposition party, the nationalist Law and Justice, had 36.2%, while the far-right Confederation party had 12.1% of the vote.

KO’s coalition partners in government, the centre-right Third Way and the Left, had 6.9% and 6.3% respectively. Turnout was 40.7%.

“Of these large, ambitious countries, of the EU leaders, Poland has shown that democracy, honesty and Europe triumph here,” Tusk told supporters. “I am so moved. We showed that we are a light of hope for Europe.”

You can read more about the official results from the EU elections in this useful explainer here:

Sam Jones is Madrid correspondent for the Guardian

Although Spanish centrist parties comfortably outperformed the far-right in Sunday’s elections, the far-right Vox party managed to attract more than 1.6m votes and increase its seat count from four to six.

More striking than Vox’s result, however, is the eruption of the Se Acabó la Fiesta party (The Party’s Over). The new far-right outfit, led by the outspoken and controversial social media influencer Luis “Alvise” Pérez, enjoyed a very strong debut, winning more than 800,00 votes and taking three seats.

Pérez responded to his party’s performance with a characteristically inflammatory, xenophobic and rabble-rousing speech.

“Spain has become a party for the corrupt, for mercenaries, for paedophiles and rapists,” he said.

“And there are many Spaniards who anonymously suffer the consequences of all this on a daily basis. Young people without any hope of accessing housing. Old people who are totally unable to defend their own homes. Police and Guardia Civil officers who are being murdered before the indifference of their own government. Homosexuals who are suffering the homophobia of foreign hordes and women who are being raped and sexually assaulted by those same hordes – and we all know that. We have structural unemployment and we have the highest youth unemployment in Europe. We have a countryside where tomatoes now need more documentation to leave the fields than an illegal immigrant needs to get into this country.”

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has written on X saying: “I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations” after calling a surprise, snap parliamentary election.

“My only ambition is to be useful to our country that I love so much,” he added.

After suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) in the European parliamentary elections, the French president on Sunday evening unexpectedly announced the election, which will take place on 30 June and 7 July.

Macron said he could not “pretend nothing had happened” and that the “rise of nationalists” is a danger to France and to Europe.

A survey by polling platform Focaldata – shared with the Reuters news agency – shows improving the economy and reducing inflation ranked highest among EU citizens when asked what was the most important thing influencing their vote.

International conflict and war was the second most important concern, followed by immigration and asylum seekers, in the poll of 6,000 citizens in the EU’s five biggest countries by population – Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland – plus Sweden.

The survey was done on 6 June, the day voting began in the EU parliament election.

Respondents placed climate change fifth on the list of issues influencing their vote, behind “reducing inequality” which ranked fourth.

However, climate change took the third spot in Sweden and Spain, the latter of which has suffered years-long droughts made more severe by climate change.

In France, Italy and Poland, voters said economic concerns were the main thing influencing their vote, with immigration in second place in France, and war the number two concern in Italy and Spain.

German respondents ranked immigration and asylum seekers as their top concern, followed by wars and then economic concerns.

Paralysis and poker moves: snap analysis of Macron's election gambit

Reaction to Emmanuel Macron’s shock election announcement continues to roll in.

Celine Bracq, director general of the Odoxa polling agency, told the AFP news agency it was a “poker move” at a time when there is a “strong desire on the part of the French to punish the president”.

It’s something extremely risky. In all likelihood, the National Rally, in the wake of the European elections, could have a majority in the National Assembly and why not an absolute majority?”

Macron could be seeking to “trap” the RN with his sudden election announcement, says Luc Rouban, political scientist at Sciences Po in Paris, arguing the party could have trouble mustering quality candidates to challenge for the 577 seats in the National Assembly.

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, says there is a serious risk of “cohabitation” – the scenario in which a president and prime minister from opposing political parties have to find a way to run the country together.

The most likely outcome is more fragmentation, more deadlock and chaos. A complete paralysis.”

Analysts say the tumult in France comes at a critical moment, as attention is turning to the country’s 2027 presidential vote, where Macron cannot stand again and National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen believes she has her best-ever chance of winning the Élysée Palace.

The leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) has hailed the dawn of a new “political cycle” after his party squeaked past the governing socialists to finish first in the European elections.

The PP took 22 seats last night, while the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE) took 20, with the far-right Vox party finishing third with six seats, up two from 2019.

Another far-right faction – Se Acabó la Fiesta (The Party’s Over) – made an emphatic debut, winning three seats, the same number as the PSOE’s coalition partners in the leftwing Sumar platform.

Podemos, once seen as a party that could eclipse the PSOE, saw its seat count drop from six seats to just two. Ahora Repúblicas, a coalition of regional nationalist parties including groupings from Catalonia and the Basque Country, won three seats.

The PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo – who had sought to make the elections a referendum on the government of PSOE prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – welcomed the results and noted his party had taken 700,000 more votes than the socialists.

We’re seeing a new political cycle. We’re faced with a new political responsibility, which we accept humbly and with a sense of statesmanship. It’s obvious that walls have lost and we’ll once again build bridges instead. It’s obvious that the discourse of fear hasn’t won.”

Sánchez congratulated the PP but said Sunday’s results showed that his party was “the only govening option capable of confronting the far-right wave that is sweeping Europe and Spain”.

The Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, reacted to the results by urging Sánchez “to do what’s been done in France and Belgium and dissolve parliament and call elections so Spaniards can vote”.

Ahead of the vote, political and public attention had been focused on a saga embroiling the prime minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez, who is being investigated over allegations of corruption and influence-peddling – allegations that Sánchez has dismissed as politically motivated and totally baseless.

However, his opponents had used the issue to ramp up pressure on Sánchez, whom they accuse of being self-serving, hypocritical and hellbent on retaining power.

In the aftermath of last year’s inconclusive general election, Sánchez managed to secure another term by performing a U-turn and promising Catalan pro-independence parties a controversial and divisive amnesty law in return for their support in returning him to office.

What next after Macron's call for snap elections?

France will go to the polls to vote for the new National Assembly on 30 June, with a second round on 7 July, giving Macron’s party just three weeks to make up ground on the RN in a short but intense burst of campaigning before France hosts the Paris Olympics in July and August.

In a best-case scenario for Macron, his centrist alliance would recover the absolute majority it lost in 2022 legislative elections and give new impetus to the remaining three years of his presidential mandate.

The nightmare outcome for him would be the RN winning a majority. That would probably see its leader Jordan Bardella, a protege of Le Pen, become prime minister in an uncomfortable “cohabitation” with Macron.

A middle scenario, analysts say, would be an anti-extremism coalition between Macron’s centrists and the traditional right-wing Republicans or even left-wing Socialists.

Speaking to the AFP news agency, the chief of Macron’s Renaissance and foreign minister Stephane Sejourne gave an indication of how the campaign could play out.

He said the party would not challenge outgoing MPs from the traditional left and right for their seats if they were prepared to “invest in a clear project” around the presidential majority.

Leaders of left-wing parties called on their camp to unite to face the RN challenge.

Despite the late hour of Emmanuel Macron’s surprise election announcement, the news has made it on to the front pages of the France’s major newspaper’s.

Under the headline, “The shock”, Le Figaro says it is an “unprecedented decision” and a “leap into the unknown for the country”.

“Dissolution: extreme gamble”, is the headline on Libération.

In its analysis, the paper notes that the “populist right has made an unprecedented breakthrough in Europe.”

“The thunderclap”, writes Le Parisien, above a picture of a stern looking Macron making his announcement to the country.

The key lesson from Sunday night is that European parliament elections can matter a lot for national politics, Pawel Zerka, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has said.

In France, the disappointingly poor result of Emmanual Macron’s party has prompted him to call early legislative election for the end of June (with this unexpected and risky move, he seeks to get a second life, and avoid a lame duck status – but it could also lead to a Macron-Le Pen cohabitation).

The most interesting thing to watch in the weeks ahead is the effect this election could have on the EU’s major decisions, says Zerka, in his snap analysis on the results.

This shift could impact policies on climate, migration, enlargement, budget, and rule of law if right-wing parties collaborate … There is also a risk of growing divisions and even chaos within the European Parliament and the European Council, which threatens European unity and capacity to achieve compromises, so much in need today given the Ukraine war and the potential for another Trump presidency.

France's snap election explained

In a shock move, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called a snap parliamentary election that will be held within the next 30 days. What happened exactly, why – and what might come next?

What were Macron’s reasons?

The president said the decision was a “serious and heavy” one, but that he could not resign himself to the fact that “far-right parties … are progressing everywhere on the continent”.

After his centrist coalition lost its parliamentary majority in the 2022 elections, Macron was resorted to pushing through legislation without a vote in the assembly, using a controversial constitutional tool known as 49/3.

Sunday’s dramatic move, however, is a huge gamble: Macron’s party could suffer yet more losses. However, most analysts predict that while the far-right party may emerge with more MPs, it will probably not win enough seats to give it a majority either – meaning the next parliament may be even messier and more ineffective than the current one.

It could be that he is looking at a neutralising “cohabitation effect”. If Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) were to score well and, for example, the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, were offered the job of prime minister, two and a half years in government may be just enough time to render the far right unpopular too.

How have National Rally responded?

Bardella was the first to urge Macron to call snap legislative elections, telling supporters after the projections were announced that French voters had “expressed a desire for change”. The country has “given its verdict and there is no appeal”, he said.

Le Pen, the party’s figurehead and presidential candidate, said she could “only welcome this decision, which is in keeping with the logic of the institutions of the Fifth Republic”. She said the party was “ready to take power if the French people have confidence in us in these forthcoming legislative elections”.

The Nordic countries bucked the overall trend in the EU elections, with left-wing and green parties making gains, official results showed, while far-right parties saw their support diminish.

In Sweden, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which is propping up Ulf Kristersson’s government, had been expected to gain votes and pass Kristersson’s conservative Moderate Party to become the second largest party – as it did in the country’s 2022 general election.

Instead, the party ended up losing ground for the first time in the party’s history. It won 13.2% of the vote, down 2.1 percentage points from the 2019 election – with more than 90% of votes counted.

The Green party emerged as the country’s third largest with 13.8% of the vote, an increase of 2.3 percentage points compared to the 2019 election.

Meanwhile, Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result – with all votes counted.

The ruling Social Democrats lost 5.9 percentage points, winning 15.6% of the votes.

Prime minister Mette Frederiksen said that SF was the party closest to the Social Democrats politically and that she was happy to see left-wing parties gaining ground.

“In large parts of Europe, the right-wing has made significant progress. Here we stand out in Denmark,” she said in a post on Instagram.

'We will build a bastion against the extremes', says von der Leyen

Preliminary results show that hard-right parties finished first in France, Italy and Austria and came second in Germany and the Netherlands, although centrist mainstream parties will probably keep an overall majority in the European parliament.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, whose centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) scored top place in the EU parliament, said she would “build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right.”

There remains a majority in the centre for a strong Europe and that is crucial for stability. In other words the centre is holding.”

Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group, albeit far weaker than the 1990s, when it led many more governments.

The EPP, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and the Greens were on course for 462 of the 720 seats, a 64.1% share, compared with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament, according to a projection based on final and provisional results late on Sunday.

Macron calls snap parliamentary election after EU vote drubbing

Far-right gains in the EU elections have triggered a snap parliamentary election in France, with President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to call the vote labelled by many as a high-risk move.

Despite centrist parties retaining an overall majority in the European parliament, across the bloc extreme right parties notched a string of high-profile wins, with a resounding win by the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen prompting Macron to make the gamble.

The RN won 31.5% of the vote to 15% for Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, according to exit polls.

“We are ready to take power if the French show trust in us,” Le Pen told her party on Sunday evening.

“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron told the country in a national address.

The French people, he said, must now make “the best choice for itself and future generations”.

Welcome and summary

Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the European parliamentary elections.

It’s 6am in Brussels, where EU lawmaking is set to get more complicated, after parties on the populist right made huge gains in many countries, while in others, support for the centre-right establishment held and leftwing parties made surprising gains.

Perhaps the most surprising response to the surge in support for populist parties was from France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, who called snap legislative elections after a crushing defeat by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

The RN won about 32% of French votes, more than double the 15% or so scored by Macron’s allies, according to projections, with the Socialists just behind on about 14%.

“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron said. “I have decided to give you the choice.”

We’ll have much more reaction to results from across the continent, but first here’s a summary of the major results:

  • Despite gains for the far and radical right on Sunday, the mainstream, pro-European parties were on course to hold their majority in the EU parliament. The centre-right European People’s party (EPP), which also topped the polls in Spain and Poland, won the largest number of seats, boosting the chances of its lead candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, to secure a second term as European Commission president. “There remains a majority in the centre for a strong Europe and that is crucial for stability. In other words the centre is holding,” von der Leyen said. The extremes on the left and right had gained support, she said, which put “great responsibility on the parties in the centre”.

  • Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group, albeit far weaker than the 1990s, when it led many more governments. The EPP, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and the Greens were on course for 462 of the 720 seats, a 64.1% share, compared with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament, according to a projection based on final and provisional results late on Sunday.

  • Olaf Scholz’s coalition had a bad night in Germany, as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made significant gains. The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, now in opposition, took a decisive lead, with 30.9% of the vote, according to provisional results. The AfD jumped to 14.2% from 11% in 2019, despite a slew of scandals, including its lead candidate saying that the SS, the Nazi’s main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.

  • Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s thanked voters after exit polls showed her hard-right Brothers of Italy party winning 26%-30% of the vote, comfortably ahead of its centre-left rivals on 21%-25%.

  • The Nordic countries bucked the overall trend in the EU elections, with left-wing and green parties making gains, official results showed, while far-right parties saw their support diminish. Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result – with all votes counted.

  • Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he heard voters’ “message” and will seek to address their concerns ahead of national elections later this year, including cracking down on “illegal migration”. Nehammer was speaking after close-to-final results showed that far-right party FPOe had come first in EU elections with 25.7% of the vote, just ahead of his ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP) which stood at 24.7%.

  • In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right party was second behind a Left-Green alliance, but appeared to have fallen short of expectations. The Freedom party took 17% of the vote, while the Left-Green alliance, led by the former EU Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, was on 21.1%.

  • The Fidesz party of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán received the most votes, but its performance was its worse in years. With 84.36% of votes counted, the ruling party was at 44.17%, while Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party was at 30.09%. Magyar called the election the Fidesz government’s Waterloo and “the beginning of the end”.

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