Romania’s far-right snatches first place, Germany’s AfD drops: EU elections projection

While Romania’s far-right AUR has topped the polls, Germany’s AfD has lost ground to the radical-left Sahara Wagenknecht’s alliance, according to Europe Elect’s latest projections for Euractiv, showing a divergence between forces at national levels.

The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians party (AUR), led by George Simion, appeared on Romania’s political scene in 2019, steadily rising until reaching first place in terms of seats, projected to score 12 lawmakers in the upcoming EU elections.

Meanwhile, the popularity of the grand coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD/S&D) and centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL/EPP) has continued to fall following corruption scandals. PSD is projected to drop to second place with nine seats, followed by PNL with eight.

Other political forces, such as the liberal party Save Romania Union (USR/Renew), have criticised the grand coalition for running on a common platform and list for the EU elections.

“We are witnessing a festival of the absurd: people who vote PNL (centre-right/EPP) will actually send social democrats to the European Parliament,” Ionuț Moșteanu, USR vice-president and spokesperson, told Euractiv.

If AUR continues in this vein, after the elections, it will debut in the European Parliament. Simion told Euractiv he seeks to join the national-conservative ECR group to share ranks with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who he sees as a role model.

ECR is expected to become either the third, fourth or fifth largest group in the Parliament, in a neck-and-neck race with the far-right ID group and the liberal Renew Europe group.

Simion said many socialist and centre-right politicians in Romania, such as MEPs and mayors, are in talks to join the AUR party, which would cement its grip on the political landscape.

With such high polling, AUR is eyeing entering the country’s government, and Simion makes it clear he is ready to shake up the European Parliament and fight the Commission’s “bureaucrats.”

Horse-shoeing: Germany’s radical and far-right mirror each other

In Germany, the new leftist breakaway party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which left the traditional left-wing party Die Linke in October, has been attracting support from far-right AfD’s voting base. Recent polls show that both parties are inversely proportional to each other: when one grows, the other decreases.

While AfD had been topping the polls for months, the far-right party dropped from 22 seats in January to 16 since BSW’s appeared.

BSW’s scored three seats in January but has now surged to eight.

Differentiating itself from Die Linke, Wagenknecht has a more socially conservative and Eurosceptic tone – a shift that has made it particularly popular with far-right and conservative voters, political scientists point out.

Analysts affirm that the AfD and BSW are trying to attract the same electoral base, with both parties sharing similar views on migration.

Other key developments since late-February projections

France: Far-right Rassemblement National (ID) drops three seats, down to 27.
A tight battle for third and fourth place in the European Parliament continues: Renew (86) is ahead of ECR (84) again. At the same time, far-right ID loses three seats and is down to 89, opening up chances for either Renew or ECR to overtake into third place.
S&D loses five seats, to 135; EPP earns one seat up to 183; Greens earn one seat up to 50; Left gains one seat up to 46.

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Rajnish Singh/Alice Taylor]

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* Infographics and data input by Jakub Rogowiecki Tobias Gerhard Schminke, Europe Elects.

** Europe Elects is Euractiv’s polling provider, find their methodology here.

***The projection uses opinion polls for the European election in the following countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden. | The projection uses the results from the last national election in the following countries: Luxembourg (8-OCT-2023), Portugal (3-MAR-2024).| The projection uses the results from the last European election in the following constituency: German-speaking community in Belgium.