Explainer: The EU’s “Venezuala Majority” and the aftermath of the EU Parliamentary Elections 2024

There is a new power-balance in the European Parliament – dubbed the “Venezuela Majority”. While the European Parliamentary elections in 2024 was widely interpreted as a centric victory, a loose alignment of political factions in the European Parliament have been controversially winning votes. At its centre lies one man – Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s Party, who is separately being investigated for misuse of EU funds in the 2019 Parliamentary election campaign. The European People’s Party has been forging an alliance with a party to the right, which secretary-general of the Party of European Socialists condemned as “dangerous and damaging for the sustainability of the EU project.”

The European Union’s parliamentary elections from the 6-9^th of June 2024 were predicted to have a notable rise of populist far-right parties, reflecting general trends across Europe. How far did the results match these predictions, and what is next? This explainer seeks to explore the growth in popularity of far-right parties in the European Parliament.  It will present the 3 far-right parliamentary groups and explore the change in tactic of denouncing the EU to seeking to gain influence within it. The far-right’s influence has grown, but not inevitably, and understanding its causes can help mitigate further growth. 

Find out More about the Europarliament Coalition Groups

The current Europarliamentary groups 

The European People’s Party (EPP) is a centre-right group, the biggest since 1994, with conservative, liberal and Christian democrat member parties and has allied with groups on both the left and right.  On The Right, the European conservatives and reformists (ECR) are made up of largely national-conservative far-right parties (e.g., Italy’s Fratelli D’Italia) with anti-immigration takes, while a new grouping, Patriots for Europe (PfE), consists of many parties (e.g., France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox) from the former far-right Identity and Democracy group. The Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) are a new small group of far-right members previously from ID or non-attached, e.g., Germany’ AfD.

Renew Europe (Renew) is a Liberal, centrist group, notably advocating for emissions reductions. The Progressive alliance of socialists and democrats (S&D) is a centre-left group. On The Left, the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) are an environmental-focused group – group members most frequently vote in the same way, while The Left (GUE/NGL) is a group including leftist and far-left parties.

As the table above shows, the EPP and S&D remained the biggest parties, experiencing only slight growth and shrinkage. Centrist parties also maintained, and slightly grew, their number of MEPs. Therefore, the traditionally dominant centre coalition has stayed relatively unchanged. 

However, it is the non-centrist parties that have seen dramatic shifts. Renew, and the Greens/EFA both shrunk notably, reflecting how climate issues are not the biggest concerns for many voters currently. According to a poll held by the Europarliament before the elections, some of the key issues for people were poverty and social exclusion, public health, economy/job creation and defense/security. Therefore, voters gravitated to parties centered on these issues. 

This does not necessarily mean a right-wing shift, as The Left had some growth too. However, the far-right groups have seen the most notable changes, especially as there are now three of them instead of two.  

The ECR is the oldest far-right group, favouring limiting migration into Europe and reducing the centralisation of the EU’s decision making, as well as moderating climate actions.  

Some feared the joining of the ECR and ID groups after the 2024 elections, which could have made them the 2^nd biggest group. Rather than combining, however, ID dissolved, with most members joining the new Patriots for Europe group. This was initially an alliance of Hungary’s Fidesz, the Freedom Party of Austria and the Czechian ANO, but has become the 3^rd biggest parliamentary group. Fidesz’s lack of agreement with the ECR, which partly led to the creation of the PfE, stemmed largely from its stance on limiting aid to Ukraine and rather finding agreement with Russia.  

The third group, Europe of Sovereign Nations, is the smallest parliamentary group, and the furthest to the right. It opposes the Green deal, military assistance to Ukraine, and favours strictly limiting migration into Europe. It includes members removed from the ECR and ID for having opinions that were too radical, such as Alternative for Germany (AfD), removed from the ID group after AfD’s main Euroelections candidate, Maximilian Krah, claimed that not all of the Nazi paramilitary SS forces were criminals. 

All of the far-right groups favor more national sovereignty over a strongly centralised EU. However, rather than advocating leaving the EU they are aiming to gain more power within it. The proclaimed goal is to turn it into the collaboration of independent countries, limiting Brussels’ power of setting region-wide policies (such as climate goals). The ECR’s website, for example, brandishes the slogan ‘Cooperation yes! Superstate no!’ The EU would additionally be used to harden border controls and the admittance of migrants across Europe.  

The growth in popularity of the ECR, PfE and ESN reflects what has been happening in many European countries, as national far-right parties have grown in popularity in the past years. Such parties are significant forces in, for example, Austria, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland. In countries such as Finland the far-right party, The Finns Party, is the second largest in the government, so the ruling moderate right party collaborates with them to get decisions through. Therefore, even in countries where the far-right is not in the outright lead they may be needed for motions. This willingness to collaborate, in the Europarliament and nationally, reflects a normalisation of increasingly radical politics. 

This normalisation was already visible in a vote last week on how the EU budget should be allocated. The EPP ended up siding with the three far-right groups to advocate for increasing funding for physical barriers against migration as well as considering deportation centres outside of the EU. This prompted the S&D, Greens and Renew -as well as the PfE, who opposed other parts of the budget- to vote against the proposal, showing how growing polarisation can make the functioning of the Parliament more difficult. 

The polarisation between parties can be seen in a poll held by EU&I on parties’ aims. There is high consensus (>70%) among parties that the EU should increase security policy and military spending, intervene in rising commodity prices and protect farmers from external competition. However, the most polarising issues between parliamentary groups (with almost 50-50% splits between parties in favour or against) are decreasing individual countries’ veto-power, banning the sale of internal-combustion engine vehicles by 2035 (part of the Green Deal), restricting migration and equal distribution of asylum seekers among countries. Far-right parties have capitalised on these issues in their campaigns. While their influence could be limited by an opposing coalition, it seems that the EPP at least is willing to collaborate on some issues. 

Still, the rise of the far-right is not inevitable. In Finland, for example, the far-right party lost a seat, with one remaining representative, whereas centrist and leftists parties gained four and two seats respectively. The French parliamentary elections during the summer saw voters electing centrist and leftists candidates to block the victory of the far-right National Rally.