Feijóo’s conservative Partido Popular (PP) won Sunday’s European elections in Spain with more than 34% of the vote. This leaves them 4% ahead of the socialist PSOE of Prime Minister Sánchez, which received 30.18% of the votes.
With 99.89% of the votes counted, the PP won 22 seats in the European Parliament, and the PSOE 20 seats. The far-right party Vox, led by Abascal, finished third. The fourth party with the most votes was Ahora Repúblicas, consisting of ERC and Bildu, among others, and Sumar came in fifth. Izquierda Unida (United Left) has not achieved representation in the European Parliament.
The right-wing bloc, PP and Vox finished with 43.81% of the vote, 5.7% more than the left-wing bloc of the PSOE, Sumar and Podemos, which is at 38.1%. Vox, with Jorge Buxadé as its leader, will have six seats in Strasbourg, two more than now. It has received the support of 1.67 million voters, 9.62%, 3.41% more than five years ago. It now occupies the third position that went to Ciudadanos in 2019, which has received only 121.000 votes (0.69%) in this appointment with the polls.
Duel PP – PSOE
The duel between the two major national parties thus ended with the victory of the PP whose candidate, Dolors Monsterrat, received 700,000 more votes than the leader of the PSOE list, Teresa Ribera. The PP has thus achieved its goal of staying ahead of the socialists. Just like in the general elections in July 2023 and the municipal elections in May 2023.
Feijóo’s party won in all regions except Catalonia, Navarre and the Canary Islands, where the PSOE won, while EH Bildu received the most votes in the Basque Country.
Setback for Sumar, Podemos holds firm
The fourth list with the most votes is the ‘Ahora Repúblicas’ coalition, which includes ERC, EH Bildu and BNG, ahead of Sumar and Podemos. Sumar, led by Yolanda Díaz, suffered a setback by winning only three seats in the European Parliament with 4.65% of the vote (811,353).
Podemos, after breaking with Sumar in December, has held out in an election it had planned as a primary within the alternative left, winning two seats and 3.27% (571,784) of the votes cast, thanks to its candidate, the former minister Irene Montero.
The joint result of the two candidates is significantly worse than that of Unidas Podemos (which brought together Podemos, IU and ‘comunes’) in 2019, given that they obtained 7.92% of the vote and five seats, while five years ago the space obtained 10.1% and six members of the European Parliament.
Surprising entrance for ‘Se acabó la fiesta’
As the sixth candidate with the most votes, the voter group ‘Se acabó la fiesta’, led by Luis ‘Alvise’ Pérez Fernández, has appeared on the scene for the first time with three seats in the European Parliament. More than 799,000 voters, 4.59%, cast their ballots.
Smaller parties
Junts comes to one deputy, Toni Comin, thanks to the 443,664 votes it obtained this Sunday, 2.54%. Carles Puigdemont’s party has lost three seats and nearly 575,000 votes since 2019.
The ERC has lost 372,792 votes compared to the European elections five years ago. In total, Catalan independence received around 785,000 votes in these elections, which represents a decrease of 923,000 votes compared to 2019.
The PSC was the party with the most votes in Catalonia (30.63%) and won in Barcelona and Tarragona, while Junts came in second with 18.02% of the votes and victories in Lleida and Girona.
In contrast, EH Bildu, which competed with ERC in Ahora Repúblicas, was the list with the most votes in the Basque Country. It won 26.24% of the vote, followed by the PSOE (25.93%) and leaves the PNV in third place, with 22.40% support. It is the PNV, which is part of the CEUS coalition with the Canarian nationalists, managed to keep its seat in the European Parliament thanks to the 281,064 people who voted.
European elections 2009 – 2014- 2019
Compared to the 2019 European elections, which were won by the PSOE with a 12-point lead over the PP, the ‘populares’ have won nine seats and now have 22, while the Socialists have lost only one representative and are left with 20
The difference between the two is now 4% (34.20% for the PP and 30.17% for the PSOE). This means that the difference has become slightly larger than the 3% also in favour of the PP, in the European elections of 2009 and 2014.