By Martin Banks - 4th June 2009
The combined forces of the centre-right are expected to be larger in the new parliament than the combined forces of the centre-left
Simon Hix
New figures suggest the centre-right EPP group is expected to remain the largest group in the new European parliament with 262 seats.
The Socialist group (PSE) is now forecast to be considerably smaller than the EPP, down to approximately 194 seats, or 26 per cent of the assembly, compared to their current 27 per cent.
These are the main findings of the final update of www.predict09.eu, the online website launched by London School of Economics academic Simon Hix.
Hix said, "As a whole the new parliament will be more fragmented, with more seats for most of the smaller parties."
There are fears that extreme fringe parties could get a significant foothold in the new parliament for the first time and the forecast also predicts that there will be approximately 50 anti-European and extreme right MEPs in the new parliament.
Hix said the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), forecast to secure 85 seats, will again be the third largest group.
A new European Conservative group, composed of the British Conservatives and their allies, if constituted, would be the fourth largest group with 53 seats, according to the final predictions.
“The combined forces of the centre-right are expected to be larger in the new parliament than the combined forces of the centre-left, with about 43 per cent and 39 per cent of the seats each, compared to 42 per cent for centre-right and 38 per cent for the centre-left in the current parliament," said Hix.
He said there was some cheer for the Socialists: by last night, out of the 4,678 visitors to predict09.eu who had taken part in a poll to decide who should be the next European commission president, 50 per cent voted for Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the former Danish PM and currently president of the Party of European Socialists.
Monica Frassoni and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, for the Greens, are second with 22 per cent; the Liberals’ Guy Verhofstadt is on 9 per cent and outgoing commission president Barroso comes fourth, at just 8 per cent.
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