GroenLinks-PvdA top Dutch EU vote, far-right PVV wins six seats June 9, 2024

As the political make-up of the next European parliament took shape on Sunday night, GroenLinks-PvdA alliance was confirmed as the biggest Dutch contingent with the far-right PVV polling in second place, but with one fewer seat than predicted in Thursday’s exit poll.   

The official Dutch results were announced on Sunday evening, after the last of the polling stations closed in Italy at 11 pm.

In the Netherlands, the left-wing alliance has taken eight of the 31 Dutch parliamentary seats, while the PVV won six. Geert Wilders’ party won no seats in 2019, although the Eurosceptic Forum voor Democratie (FVD), which has now been be wiped out, took four.

Despite the rise in support for the far right, about two-thirds of the Dutch voted for a party that is positive about European cooperation. D66 added one seat while pan European party Volt won two seats at an EU level.  

Across Europe as a whole, the Christian Democrats (EPP) are set to remain the biggest group, with early prognoses giving them 186 of the 720 seats in the European parliament, a rise of 10, and the social democrats (S&D) in second place on 1335, down six. The Liberals (Renew) and Greens both lost heavily.

The far-right I&D group, which includes the PVV and Marine Le Pen’s RN, are forecast to gain 11 seats, taking them to 60. The surge in support for Le Pen, whose party is forecast to win around one-third of the vote, prompted also Emmanuel Macron to call new elections. In Belgium, however, the far-right Vlaams Belang failed to make their expected breakthrough.

The other right-wing conservative grouping, ECR which includes Fratelli d’Italia and Poland’s PiS, is predicted to gain just two seats, at 71. But these figures do not include Germany’s AfD, which won around 16% of the vote, nor far-right parties in Hungary and Slovakia which are all non-aligned.

In the Netherlands, the results for Pieter Omtzigt’s NSC are particularly poor. The party won almost 13% of the vote in November but has now plunged to 3.8%, giving it just one seat in the European parliament. According to research by Ipsos I&O, 59% of people who backed the party in the national election did not bother to vote at all last week.

Support for both the PVV and the VVD is down on November, with the VVD losing one of its five seats, an event which party leader Dilan Yesilgöz nevertheless described as a “fine result”. The pro-countryside BBB, however, managed to increase their share of the vote marginally on last year and will debut in Brussels with two MPs.

Comparisons with the 2019 results are difficult because the Dutch delegation to the EU parliament has expanded from 26 to 31 since then.

The Dutch results

GroenLinks-PvdA 8  (3+6)

PVV   6 ( 0 + 1 following Brexit)

VVD   4  (4 + 1 following Brexit)

CDA   3  (4)

D66   3  (2)

BBB 2 (0)

Volt  2 (0)

NSC  1 (0)

SGP 1  (1)

PvdD 1 (1)

The finalised results confirm that ChristenUnie and 50Plus are out of Europe alongside the FvD.

Turnout in the Dutch elections for the European parliament was almost 47%, five percentage points up on 2019 and the highest figure since 1989. Nevertheless, it is still below the EU average of 51% which itself is in line with the 2019 turnout.

All three candidates interviewed by Dutch News ahead of the election will be taking a seat in Brussels. Check out their thoughts:

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Categories: Dutch News, Politics
Anton Nieuwenhuizen

Written by:Anton Nieuwenhuizen All posts by the author

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