Socialists-Greens head to head with Wilders’ far-right in the Netherlands: EU election exit poll

5 months ago 17

In the Netherlands, the green-social democratic joint list PvDA-GroenLinks is head to head with far-right PVV, with eight and seven seats respectively, according to the exit polls following the EU election held on Thursday (6 June).

The PvDA-GroenLinks joint list will split after the elections, as the PvdA is a member of the S&D group in the European Parliament and GroenLinks is part of the Greens/EFA.

As it stands, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA will together get 15 out of 31 Dutch seats in the 720-member European Parliament. The remaining 16 MEPs reflect a scattered political landscape, representing 11 different parties. For example, the European federalist party Volt, the party for animals and the calvinist SGP all earned one seat each.

Among the losers were established centrist parties that historically sent many active and prominent MEPs. The Christian Democratic CDA (EPP) barely registered with three seats; Mark Rutte’s right-wing liberal VVD and the social-liberal D66, both Renew, obtained four and three respectively, according to the exit polls published by broadcaster NOS.

The new government parties New Social Contract (one seat) and the Farmers’ Citizens Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging) won two seats, with which it enters the European Parliament for the first time.

They would both like to join the EPP, but CDA has so far denied such a prospect as NSC and BBB have a “eurosceptic or even anti-European attitude”, CDA’s lead candidate Tom Berendsen said on 4 June.

If BBB and NSC join EPP, 21 out of 31 Dutch seats will be part of the pro-European majority.

The official results are expected on Sunday evening at 21:00. Though differences in the exit polls are fairly small, the final seat distribution may appear different.

The Netherlands is the first member state to complete voting. Due to the religious requirements of some Protestants in the Netherlands, elections are never held on Sundays which is the day on which most countries will vote.

Will the other EU countries mirror the Netherlands?

The high score of the far-right PVV fits with the expected trend that radical right parties are making gains in many member states, such as France with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, expected to be the biggest national delegation in the European Parliament.

The PVV has no seats in the outgoing European parliament, partly because another Dutch radical right-wing party did better in 2019. This more pro-Russian Forum for Democracy now did not win any seats.

The growth of the PVV does not come as a surprise. The party of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders won the elections for the national parliament back in November.

Wilders has expressed the wish to form a joint European faction with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, leader of the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, and the Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group. Whether such a coalition is realistic remains to be seen, as there are wide disagreements between the two groups.

The campaign in the Netherlands only really kicked off in the last week. National party leaders Geert Wilders and Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks/PvdA), were both absent from the ballot list themselves, though they sought confrontation with each other. Wilders tried to make migration the main theme of the campaign, Timmermans mainly positioned himself as the anti-Wilders.

The turnout is around 44%, higher than in previous editions. In 2019, 42% went to the polls. Since the early 1990s, turnout for European elections in the Netherlands has always been below forty percent.

[Edited by Chris Powers]