EU Election Results: European Voters Support Friends of Ukraine

European voters supported the Italian Prime Minister and other pro-Ukrainian parties and showed little favour for Russia's friends in the European Union.  

According to preliminary data, the turnout for the EU elections is 50.8%.

A surge in support for far-right parties in France, Germany and Austria was mitigated by strong support for centrist and left-wing groups in other countries. 

The European People's Party (EPP) won a clear victory in Sunday's European Parliament elections, consolidating control of the chamber, even as far-right groups made significant gains across the bloc.

According to preliminary data, the centre-right force is set to have around 184 lawmakers in the parliament, a quarter of the 720 in the semicircle. It is the only centrist party to have grown in these elections: the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) remained stable, while the liberal group Restore Europe was decimated.

Far-right forces made significant gains across the bloc. In France, the National Rally won almost a third of the vote, cementing itself as the leading ultranationalist group in the next parliament. "Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy also soared, with more than a quarter of voters backing the group.

Two groups in the European Parliament at the far right of the spectrum, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, will control 131 seats in the chamber. 

This does not include 15 lawmakers from Germany's Alternative, 10 from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party, six from Poland's Confederation party, or three from Bulgaria's pro-Kremlin Revival party.

Meloni's advance in Italy has undermined the League; the once-leading party in the Identity and Democracy group lost two-thirds of its seats on Sunday. In Spain, Vox was similarly pushed aside by The Party is Over, a new party led by far-right internet personality Alvise Perez. This new group won the three seats that Vox would have won, doubling its representation and having six lawmakers in Brussels for the next term.

If the far-right were to form a single group, it would be the second-largest force in the European Parliament, after the traditionally dominant European People's Party. 

The rivalries and divisions within its ranks make this scenario unlikely, but its sheer size would nevertheless exert the right kind of pressure on EU policy.