Forecast puts EPP ahead, but sees support for ECR falling

March 05, 2020 / By mobanmarket

Forecast puts EPP ahead, but sees support for ECR falling

EPP could win 216 seats in the next Parliament compared to 205 for the S&D group.

The European People’s Party (EPP) has increased its lead over the Socialists and Democrats in the latest prediction of the compostion of the next European Parliament from PollWatch2014.

But the forecast, released yesterday (7 May), has bad news for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which was created by the British Conservatives after they left the EPP.

According to the prediction, the EPP would win 216 seats in the next Parliament compared to 205 for the S&D group. The centre-left has lost ground in opinion polls in France and Poland, while EPP parties are gaining support in Spain, Romania and Poland.

The Pollwatch2014 forecast gives the ECR just 39 seats in the next Parliament – down from 57 seats in the 2009-14 Parliament and from 42 last week. This would give the ECR the same number of MEPs as the Eurosceptic group Europe of Freedom and Democracy, and see it trailing the Greens (forecast to have 41 MEPs) and the far-left GUE group (forecast to have 49 MEPs). PollWatch2014 has revised down its prediction for ECR support in Luxembourg, Poland and the UK.

The ECR’s overall number is highly dependent on the volatile contest in the UK between the Conservatives and the United Kingdom Independence Party. The Conservatives could drop from 27 seats to 16, according to predictions. The Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) are forecast to drop from nine seats to one. There is better news for the ECR from Poland, where the Law and Justice party (PiS), is predicted to grow from 12 to 18 seats. That would make the PiS the largest contingent in the ECR.

What is worrying for the ECR is that it is forecast to have MEPs from six member states, one short of the minimum number of states required to form a group in the Parliament. The ECR is believed to be in discussions with parties such as the Flemish nationalist N-VA and The Finns (formerly The True Finns).

At a press conference earlier this year announcing that the ECR would not put forward a candidate for president of the European Commission, the group’s secretary-general, British MEP Daniel Hannan, said he was confident that the ECR would increase its presence in the next Parliament. This could be achieved only by adding at least two new parties to the group.

Pollwatch2014 predicts that the seven parties expected to form a far-right group in the Parliament – including France’s Front National, the Dutch PVV, and Italy’s Lega Nord – would have at least 38 seats in the next Parliament. The ECR has ruled out an alliance with any of these far-right groups.

A big prize for any group would be the Five Star Movement in Italy, which is forecast to have 21 seats in the next Parliament. Beppe Grillo’s party is not wedded to a political philosophy and he has given few hints about what political group he might join in the Parliament.

Pollwatch2014 is an initiative of VoteWatch Europe, in partnership with Burson-Marsteller/Europe Decides. It uses a combination of opinion polls that canvassed voters’ intentions for the European elections and opinion polls that canvassed voters’ intentions for national and/or regional elections. European-specific polls were available for eight out of the 28 EU member states.

Source: PollWatch2014

Click Here: cheap sydney roosters jersey