2019 European Parliament elections

Overview
From 22 to 25 May 2014, elections to the European Parliament were held in the European Union.

It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candidates for President of the Commission. The candidates, sometimes referred to by the German term Spitzenkandidaten (English: top candidates), were Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People's Party,   Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists, Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, Ska Keller and José Bové jointly for the European Green Party and Alexis Tsipras for the Party of the European Left. The Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists   and the European Alliance for Freedom declined to nominate candidates.

While the European People's Party lost ground to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, it remained the largest faction in the new parliament, resulting in the EPP's nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission President at the European Council. In turn, the European Council accepted the nomination by a simple majority (only David Cameron and Viktor Orban voted against Juncker).

The next election to the European Parliament was held between 23 and 26 May 2019 and will be the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) currently represent more than 512 million people from 28 member states.

In February 2018, the European Parliament voted to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 if the United Kingdom were to withdraw from the European Union on 29 March 2019. However, the United Kingdom is now due to participate alongside other EU member states after an extension of the Article 50 process.

Who can vote in the UK during this election

 *  To vote in this election you must: 
 * 1) have registered to vote at your current address by Friday 12 April 2019.
 * 2) be 18 or over on the day of the election.
 * 3) be a British, Irish, Commonwealth or EU citizen.
 * 4) be registered at an address in the area in which you want to vote.
 * 5) not be legally excluded from voting, such as prisoners.

Background
 The main topics were: 
 * 1) Eviromental and recycling issues surrounding plastic.
 * 2) Future trade with Russia, China, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Brazil, Japan and the USA.
 * 3) The racist government in Hungary had become a de facto one party state and the people had developed a personality cult around the PM, Viktor Alban.
 * 4) Germany had drained Greece dry of money and saleable assets by loan sharking it after the 2008 financial crisis.
 * 5) Francee had dumped it's African illegal immigrants on Italy and Malta.
 * 6) Italy, Poland and Spain refusing to take significant numbers of immigrants.
 * 7) Poland, Slovakia, the UK and Hungary refusing to take significant numbers of  Syrian immigrants.
 * 8) Poland and Romania flooding the UK and Ireland with migrant labours.
 * 9) The Brexit fiasco in the UK and Ireland.
 * 10) Ecanomic and subsequent employment decline in the EU as a whole.
 * 11) Germany's growing Neo-Nazi youth movement.
 * 12) Italian and Spanish ecanomic collapse.
 * 13) British, German, Italian, Hungarian, Austrian, French and Dutch fears over Islamic terrorism.
 * 14) Older English peoples' pathological hatred of Poland, Romania and Greece.
 * 15) Older English peoples' virulent racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and the belief that the Nazis were lenient, multicultural and left wing (WTF).
 * 16) The UK's imminent disintegration along racial and religious lines.
 * 17) Scots and Catalan independence.
 * 18) Poland's ultra-conservative regime.
 * 19) The growing German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and English adoration for the WW2 era  Axis Powers.
 * 20) Romania's image as soft on corruption despite being hard on corruption.
 * 21) The collapse of British Steel.
 * 22) Andrea Leadsom quitting the UK's cabinet over Europe.

Campaign
A milkshake was thrown over Nigel Farage (Brexit Party), Tommy Robinson (EDL) and Carl Benjamin (UKIP) during British campaign. There were some minor pro-Remaine vs. Pro-Brexit scuffles in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield and Glasgow.

The leaders of German, Italian, French, Bulgaria, Dutch Czech, and Swedish far-right parties held a joint rally in Milan.

Thee were several anti- Far-right rallies in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgian, The Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and Romania,

EU MEP affiliation on May 22nd, 2019
The centre-right European People's Party won the most seats, but came up well short of a majority. In Denmark, France, and United Kingdom rightist groups opposed to the European Union won "unprecedented" victories according to some news organisations such as Reuters. Elsewhere, populist parties won significant seats. In total, roughly a quarter of all seats went to parties sceptical of the EU or protest parties. Thus, the election was seen as anti-establishment. In the wake of the election, several prominent political figures said the EU needed to realign its priorities in a hurry. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called for "fewer rules and less fuss", while British Prime Minister David Cameron said "Europe should concentrate on what matters, on growth and jobs, and not try to do so much."


 * 1) ^ Highlight colours show declared group affiliation in the incoming parliament.
 * 2) ^ Mrs Joëlle Bergeron who was elected from the Marine blue gathering's electoral list will eventually seat as an independent MEP in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy political group after having ended her membership of the National Front.
 * 3) ^ VMRO was elected on the BBT list, and was accepted to the ECR Group in late June.
 * 4) ^ Brian Crowley was the sole elected Fianna Fáil MEP, which had sat with the ALDE group in the previous Parliament. Against party wishes, Crowley left the ALDE group and joined the ECR group for the Eighth Parliament. Fianna Fáil was and remains a member of the ALDE party, and as a result of Crowley's actions, the party whip was withdrawn, though he retains his party membership.
 * 5) ^ Official results as of Wednesday 28 May 2014, 8:30 UTC: all 751 seats assigned.
 * 6) ^ Differences in seat counts for each group only take into account parties or individuals who were already members of a given group in the outgoing parliament (or of a corresponding Europarty). The MEPs elected in 2014 will be free to join existing groups or form new ones. To learn more about this process, see Political groups of the European Parliament and section #Group reshuffling below.

The 2019 EU wide results.



 *  MEPs change compared with 2014. 

Also see

 * 1) Elections
 * 2) A prayer for Europe
 * 3) May 2019 UK voter suppression incidents
 * 4) The CBI and TUC unite again against Brexit
 * 5) May 12th UK opinion polling on the May 23rd EU election
 * 6) The March 27th indicative votes and the House Motion (April 3rd)
 * 7) May 2nd, 2019, Oxfordshire districts' council election results
 * 8) May 2nd, 2019, Middlesbrough Borough Council and Mayor of Middlesbrough elections
 * 9) Electoral Calculus.co.uk.s' May 17th 2019 election prediction for the Middlesbrough seats