00:00And, as the European Parliament elections come to an end, we welcome our correspondent
00:06Junus Söner with the latest updates.
00:09Hello, Junus, welcome back to From the South.
00:13Hello, good evening from Berlin, the capital of Germany.
00:18The majority of the countries have finished voting and we have already some preliminary
00:24results that indicate a clear tendency.
00:29To begin with, we have Germany is the country that sends 96 deputies to the European Parliament,
00:37so let's start with Germany.
00:39In Germany we have the Christian Democratic Union, the traditional conservative party
00:45ending up as first with 30%, but followed by the Alternative for Germany party, which
00:52is the right-wing populist, extreme right-wing, that's a matter of debate, ending up with
01:0016% of the votes, 5% up from their last time, as the second biggest force in Germany.
01:08The governing coalition here of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, all
01:14lost, with the Greens losing 8% in comparison to the last election in 2019.
01:23A similar tendency to the right we see in France, which sends 81 deputies to the 720
01:32members of the European Assembly Parliament, and here the Rassemblement National, the party
01:38of Marine Le Pen, has won, according to preliminary results, 31.5% ending up the first country.
01:47A lot of people say this vote indicates that in the next presidential candidates Le Pen
01:54will also win the presidency in France.
01:57Another country with a right-wing populist victory is Austria, that sends 20 members
02:04to the European Parliament.
02:05Here the Libertarian Austrian party has gained 27% of the votes, followed by the traditional
02:12conservative party and the Social Democrats, both left behind with 23%.
02:19The Netherlands, 31 members to the European Parliament, here the coalition of the Social
02:25Democrats and Greens succeeded to be the number one, but the Party of Liberty, another right-wing
02:32populist party, has finished only second to them, gaining 17%, also an increase of
02:39votes and also an increase of deputies in the European Parliament.
02:43Generally speaking, we have a clear tendency that especially in Central Europe, in Germany,
02:50France, Austria, Netherlands, the right-wing or extreme right-wing parties are gaining
02:58more seats.
02:59That places pressure on the traditional fractions in the European Parliament.
03:05For instance, the European People's Party fraction in the European Parliament is the
03:10conservative fraction, the established conservative fraction, which now will be challenged by
03:16the identity and democracy fraction to which these right-wing populist parties mostly belong,
03:23among them Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement Nationale.
03:26That means forces within the European Parliament that are Eurosceptical, that demand a strengthening
03:34of national states' authority versus Brussels, are gaining strength.
03:40The place I am here is the party center of the Alliance of Sarah Wagenknecht, a newly
03:48founded party here in Germany from the left, but that shares certain points with these
03:54parties in terms of seeking peace and diplomacy in Ukraine and limiting Brussels' authority
04:01as well.
04:02This party was founded in 2024, January, some months ago, and gained from zero 6% in these
04:09elections and will send also six deputies to the European Parliament.
04:14So it's a kind of weird exception to this general trend.
04:19But this general trend is obvious, which states that the European Parliament, those
04:25political forces which demand a relaxation of the European Union, which reject transferring
04:33authority to Brussels, are gaining strength.
04:37And here in Germany, even some political forces are calling for renewed national elections,
04:44which is a far long way to go.
04:47But it's clear that the governing coalition in Germany has lost a lot of votes.
04:57Thank you, Juno Söder, for your complete update.
05:00We will see how these elections result by Monday.
05:05We have now a final short break.
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