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The timetable for hearings for the Commissioners-designate has been set. Today’s News explains which candidates have to go to their respective specialist committees and why some people are annoyed about the time schedule.
The EU Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee’s examination of possible conflicts of interest of the Commissioner candidates also caused anger. All candidates passed the test, but the committee’s approach has been criticized. “Information that was found in the media but not in the candidates’ declarations of interest was not included in the assessment”, Lobbycontrol criticized. Parliament had thus limited itself in its work.
Members of the JURI Committee were also dissatisfied with the procedure. The designated Commissioners would only have to provide information “which could be assumed to lead to a conflict of interest”, said SPD MEP René Repasi. This would allow them to assess for themselves whether conflicts of interest exist. “But that is actually the task of Parliament.” Repasi is therefore calling for a reform of the scrutiny process.
Green MEP Sergey Lagodinsky left the chamber on Thursday in protest together with other Green and Left MEPs. The procedure was driven by the fear of the major parties of losing their candidates, said Lagodinsky. “Instead of asking for concrete information, the committee froze in this fear and pushed the examination through hastily and ill-informed with fearful majorities.”
At the end of the meeting, the chairman of the JURI Committee, Renew politician İlhan Küçük, also found that a review of the procedure was necessary.
I wish you a smooth start to the weekend.
The vote in the Council on the countervailing duties on electric cars manufactured in China reflects the interests of manufacturers and suppliers across the 27 EU member states. The main camps of manufacturers’ consortia are now concentrated in only two member states: France is home to Renault as well as Stellantis with brands such as Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, and Fiat. In Germany, VW, BMW and Mercedes have their headquarters.
The corporate headquarters in France and Germany are differently affected by the tariffs, which is why they are not pulling in the same direction: Paris voted in favor of the tariffs, Berlin against – many EU partners reacted to Olaf Scholz’s decision with incomprehension.
The interests of the French: Stellantis and Renault mainly offer vehicles in the volume segment. They have virtually no presence in the Chinese market. However, they have been feeling the effects of the EV offensive by Chinese manufacturers in Europe for around two years. They chose France first to gain market share by offering competitive prices. As early as 2023, Group CEOs Luca de Meo (Renault) and Carlos Tavares (Stellantis) submitted a request to the EU Commission via the Élysée Palace to impose countervailing duties on EVs produced in China.
The countervailing duties, due to take effect at the end of October, fit the manufacturers’ strategy: The additional tariffs on Chinese-made EVs will increase the price of imports from Asia and improve the sales opportunities of French and Italian manufacturers in the domestic market. Ten member states, representing 46 percent of the EU population, voted in favor of the countervailing duties in the Council. Among them, only France and Italy have a car industry. Countries such as the Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have no economic interests of their own in the matter.
The fact that many Member States are no longer affected by upheavals in the automotive industry is also evident from the many countries that abstained in the vote: twelve Member States, representing a third of the EU population. These include Sweden, Finland, Romania, Spain, Croatia and the Czech Republic. However, Spain, Belgium, Croatia, Romania and the Czech Republic have at least assembly plants and supplier factories.
Only five countries voted against the countervailing duties. They represent just under a quarter of the EU population. However, of these countries, only Germany has a large population, namely 19 percent. The other countries that opposed the duties were Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. Hungary and Slovakia may also have voted against the tariffs because they are pro-China. Slovenian Economics Minister Matjaž Han said: “We took the same position as Germany because Germany is our main partner in the automotive industry.”
The interests of the German manufacturers are fundamentally different from those of the French manufacturers: BMW, Mercedes, and the VW brands Audi and Porsche are premium brands and do not compete with Chinese EVs. The CEOs of German companies are expressly opposed to the countervailing duties. For instance, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse recently rejected the tariffs quite brashly in a meeting between car executives and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. He stressed that German manufacturers are competitive and do not need Brussels’ help.
Unlike the French industry, which has no presence in China, German premium manufacturers focus on the Chinese market both in terms of sales and production: On the one hand, they fear that China will retaliate by imposing tariffs on large-volume German-made gasoline cars. Initial signs already point to this. For years, German manufacturers have been making a fortune selling luxury vehicles in China. The profits from this business have formed a significant portion of company profits over the years and have helped compensate for lower returns in the European business.
BMW, Mercedes and Audi have built up their own production capacities in China. In 2023, all three manufacturers sold roughly the same number of luxury cars in China at over 700,000 units each. Only Porsche does not operate any plants of its own in China, having sold just under 80,000 vehicles on the Chinese market in 2023. Retaliatory tariffs on gasoline cars would hurt the bottom lines of BMW, Mercedes and VW. As it is, their biggest concern is that consumption in China is collapsing and sales of premium vehicles are declining drastically.
Moreover, the countervailing duties on EVs produced in China directly affect BMW, VW and Mercedes. In fact, in two ways: Additional countervailing duties will be levied on EVs that they produce in China as well as those imported into the EU. The regular duty rate is already 10 percent. In some cases, the rates of the additional countervailing duties are higher than those of Tesla (7 percent) and Chinese manufacturers such as BYD (17 percent):
BMW is manufacturing two EV models for export to the EU in China: the Mini Cooper SE and the iX1. BMW originally planned to manufacture the e-Mini exclusively in China. Now it will built in the UK after all. Mercedes-Benz has founded a joint venture with the Chinese company Geely to produce the Smart (EV). Two models are currently being manufactured in China and exported to 17 EU member states. A third model has been announced. VW manufactures the Cupra Tavascan (EV) at a Chinese plant. The Tavascan is exported to the EU.
BMW, VW and Mercedes remain silent about the number of units exported to Europe. In terms of total registrations in the EU, German EVs manufactured in China do not play a significant role. However, the companies had firmly included them in their plans to meet the EU fleet-wide emissions. EVs imported from China, which count as zero grams in the CO2 emissions balance, were supposed to reduce the fleet limits and help avoid fines.
This strategy might fail: If EV sales in the EU fall due to the higher tariffs, the fleet-wide emissions of companies will worsen. This means that BMW, Mercedes and VW will have a harder time complying with the stricter fleet limits in 2025. The fines for 2025 could be even higher than recently estimated (15 billion euros).
Undeterred by the cancellation of the Ramstein meeting, which was scheduled for Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi traveled through Western Europe on Thursday. At meetings with heads of government in London, Paris and in the evening in Rome, as well as this Friday in Berlin, the Ukrainian President is promoting his plan for victory. In London, he also met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Zelenskyi wants permission from the UK and France to use the Storm Shadow (UK) and Scalp (France) cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine against targets on Russian territory. However, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday: “There has been no change in the British government’s position on the use of long-range missiles.”
The Ukrainian president is hoping to gain territory in order to strengthen his negotiating position. The Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” had speculated that Zelenskyi was prepared to agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine received security guarantees from the USA in return and could join the EU quickly. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sharply rejected the “manipulative representations of some foreign media” on Thursday evening.
One basis for the Italian interpretation was a tweet by Zelenskyi on Wednesday evening, in which he wrote: “The situation on the battlefield offers the opportunity to end the war by 2025 at the latest through decisive action.” Zelenskyi also wrote that a NATO invitation to Ukraine and future membership would be “a real step towards peace”. Without the certainty that Ukraine would never be subjugated by Russia, peace would not be possible.
With regard to the peace summit, which is to take place this year, Zelenskyi continued: “In October, November and December we have a real chance to move things in the direction of peace and lasting stability.”
Zelenskyi knows that his country’s resilience ultimately depends on support from abroad. And there are several foreseeable risks. Even if Donald Trump, who maintained direct contact with Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin after his term in office, is not elected as US president, the level of aid from Washington is uncertain.
Populists in the EU pose a further risk. They question aid for Kyiv, particularly during election campaigns; in Germany, such voices can be found in both the AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance, which considers itself to be on the left. The envy debates they are stirring up are bearing fruit. The total amount of aid for Ukraine is rather small compared to the amount spent on other crises. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the total EU funds up to and including August 2024 amounted to just under one-eighth of the funds to combat the economic impact of Covid.
The main problem is the dependency that exists between European and US support, as the US alone provides more than half of the military aid, explains Pietro Bomprezzi when asked. He heads the Ukraine Support Tracker project at the Kiel Institute. And he points to another problem: “The military-industrial expansion in Europe is currently slower than that in Russia.”
Putin’s government is planning to spend a third of the 2025 state budget on the military and the defense industry – 32.4 percent of all spending, three percentage points more than this year. Despite 14 sanctions packages, the regime has stabilized the economy, at least for the foreseeable future. During a visit to Berlin this week, Lev Gudkov, one of Russia’s most experienced and respected sociologists, summarized the situation in his home country as follows: “There is no way Russia will end the war due to economic exhaustion.”
Four months after the European elections, the European far-right parties are still on the upswing. In the Austrian parliamentary elections at the end of September, the FPÖ (PfE) became the strongest party, while far-right parties could finish in second place in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian parliamentary elections this October. The three far-right parties are also making further gains at EU level. In the base scenario of the current seat projection, they would achieve a total of 196 seats. That is nine more than in the European elections in June and ten more than in the most recent projection in August.
This upswing is mainly due to the “Patriots for Europe”, the largest of the three far-right groups. The PfE not only made slight gains in Austria, but also in several other member states. They are also benefiting from the first parliamentary group change of the new legislative period: At the beginning of October, it was joined by two previously non-attached MEPs from the Polish Konfederacja. In total, the PfE now has 96 seats (+8 compared to August), a new all-time high.
The two other far-right groups – the ECR with the Polish PiS and the Italian Fratelli d’Italia and the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) group with the German AfD – can only make slight gains in each case. In the projection, the ECR has 74 seats (+1), the ESN 26 (+1).
The EPP, on the other hand, has suffered losses: After making slight gains in the August projection, it has now fallen slightly below its result in the European elections in June (186/-5). However, most of these losses are only small fluctuations, often within the margin of error of the polls, which only happen to point in the same direction. There is also a clear counter-trend in Hungary, where the Tisza party led by shooting star Péter Magyar, which joined the EPP group after the European elections, is making strong gains and is now only just behind Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz (PfE) in some polls.
However, Tisza’s gains are largely at the expense of other Hungarian opposition parties – such as the social democratic DK. The past few weeks have also been rather mixed for the European Social Democrats: While they made slight gains in Germany and Greece, they ended their brief summer highs in Italy and Spain. Overall, the social democratic S&D group has 136 seats, one less than in the last projection.
The liberal Renew Group (79 seats/+2) is in a slightly better position. It is benefiting above all from developments in Italy, where the alliance of the two parties IV and +Europa (which ran in the European elections under the name “Stati Uniti d’Europa”) would now narrowly overcome the national four-percent hurdle. The Liberals, on the other hand, are in trouble in Bulgaria, where their member party DPS split into two competing lists shortly before the national parliamentary elections.
As in 2014 and 2019, the European Greens are suffering from a European election hangover: after making significant gains shortly before the election, they have slumped again in the polls after the election. They are currently struggling in Germany and Denmark, among others; they also fell slightly short of expectations in the Austrian elections. Overall, the Greens/EFA group still has 41 seats (-4), falling behind the Left Group (44 seats/±0).
The latter has made gains in the Netherlands, among other countries, while its Greek member party Syriza is plagued by internal power struggles. The recent split in the European Left Party has no impact on the projection: the old European Left and the new European Left Alliance continue to form a joint parliamentary group.
The non-attached parties have slightly fewer seats than in August (29/-2), mainly due to the PfE accession of Konfederacja. Finally, there were few changes among the “other” parties – i.e. parties that are not represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to a political group (9 seats/±0).
As there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario, all national parties are assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear assignment are shown as “other”.
The dynamic scenario assigns all “other” parties to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and also takes into account possible future changes of parliamentary group by parties already represented in parliament. Currently, however, the “other” seats would be so widely distributed across the parliamentary groups that the two scenarios hardly differ. A more detailed breakdown of the results as well as information on the data basis and methodology of the projection can be found on the blog “The (European) Federalist“.
The timetable for hearings for the Commissioners-designate has been set. Today’s News explains which candidates have to go to their respective specialist committees and why some people are annoyed about the time schedule.
The EU Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee’s examination of possible conflicts of interest of the Commissioner candidates also caused anger. All candidates passed the test, but the committee’s approach has been criticized. “Information that was found in the media but not in the candidates’ declarations of interest was not included in the assessment”, Lobbycontrol criticized. Parliament had thus limited itself in its work.
Members of the JURI Committee were also dissatisfied with the procedure. The designated Commissioners would only have to provide information “which could be assumed to lead to a conflict of interest”, said SPD MEP René Repasi. This would allow them to assess for themselves whether conflicts of interest exist. “But that is actually the task of Parliament.” Repasi is therefore calling for a reform of the scrutiny process.
Green MEP Sergey Lagodinsky left the chamber on Thursday in protest together with other Green and Left MEPs. The procedure was driven by the fear of the major parties of losing their candidates, said Lagodinsky. “Instead of asking for concrete information, the committee froze in this fear and pushed the examination through hastily and ill-informed with fearful majorities.”
At the end of the meeting, the chairman of the JURI Committee, Renew politician İlhan Küçük, also found that a review of the procedure was necessary.
I wish you a smooth start to the weekend.
The vote in the Council on the countervailing duties on electric cars manufactured in China reflects the interests of manufacturers and suppliers across the 27 EU member states. The main camps of manufacturers’ consortia are now concentrated in only two member states: France is home to Renault as well as Stellantis with brands such as Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, and Fiat. In Germany, VW, BMW and Mercedes have their headquarters.
The corporate headquarters in France and Germany are differently affected by the tariffs, which is why they are not pulling in the same direction: Paris voted in favor of the tariffs, Berlin against – many EU partners reacted to Olaf Scholz’s decision with incomprehension.
The interests of the French: Stellantis and Renault mainly offer vehicles in the volume segment. They have virtually no presence in the Chinese market. However, they have been feeling the effects of the EV offensive by Chinese manufacturers in Europe for around two years. They chose France first to gain market share by offering competitive prices. As early as 2023, Group CEOs Luca de Meo (Renault) and Carlos Tavares (Stellantis) submitted a request to the EU Commission via the Élysée Palace to impose countervailing duties on EVs produced in China.
The countervailing duties, due to take effect at the end of October, fit the manufacturers’ strategy: The additional tariffs on Chinese-made EVs will increase the price of imports from Asia and improve the sales opportunities of French and Italian manufacturers in the domestic market. Ten member states, representing 46 percent of the EU population, voted in favor of the countervailing duties in the Council. Among them, only France and Italy have a car industry. Countries such as the Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have no economic interests of their own in the matter.
The fact that many Member States are no longer affected by upheavals in the automotive industry is also evident from the many countries that abstained in the vote: twelve Member States, representing a third of the EU population. These include Sweden, Finland, Romania, Spain, Croatia and the Czech Republic. However, Spain, Belgium, Croatia, Romania and the Czech Republic have at least assembly plants and supplier factories.
Only five countries voted against the countervailing duties. They represent just under a quarter of the EU population. However, of these countries, only Germany has a large population, namely 19 percent. The other countries that opposed the duties were Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. Hungary and Slovakia may also have voted against the tariffs because they are pro-China. Slovenian Economics Minister Matjaž Han said: “We took the same position as Germany because Germany is our main partner in the automotive industry.”
The interests of the German manufacturers are fundamentally different from those of the French manufacturers: BMW, Mercedes, and the VW brands Audi and Porsche are premium brands and do not compete with Chinese EVs. The CEOs of German companies are expressly opposed to the countervailing duties. For instance, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse recently rejected the tariffs quite brashly in a meeting between car executives and Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. He stressed that German manufacturers are competitive and do not need Brussels’ help.
Unlike the French industry, which has no presence in China, German premium manufacturers focus on the Chinese market both in terms of sales and production: On the one hand, they fear that China will retaliate by imposing tariffs on large-volume German-made gasoline cars. Initial signs already point to this. For years, German manufacturers have been making a fortune selling luxury vehicles in China. The profits from this business have formed a significant portion of company profits over the years and have helped compensate for lower returns in the European business.
BMW, Mercedes and Audi have built up their own production capacities in China. In 2023, all three manufacturers sold roughly the same number of luxury cars in China at over 700,000 units each. Only Porsche does not operate any plants of its own in China, having sold just under 80,000 vehicles on the Chinese market in 2023. Retaliatory tariffs on gasoline cars would hurt the bottom lines of BMW, Mercedes and VW. As it is, their biggest concern is that consumption in China is collapsing and sales of premium vehicles are declining drastically.
Moreover, the countervailing duties on EVs produced in China directly affect BMW, VW and Mercedes. In fact, in two ways: Additional countervailing duties will be levied on EVs that they produce in China as well as those imported into the EU. The regular duty rate is already 10 percent. In some cases, the rates of the additional countervailing duties are higher than those of Tesla (7 percent) and Chinese manufacturers such as BYD (17 percent):
BMW is manufacturing two EV models for export to the EU in China: the Mini Cooper SE and the iX1. BMW originally planned to manufacture the e-Mini exclusively in China. Now it will built in the UK after all. Mercedes-Benz has founded a joint venture with the Chinese company Geely to produce the Smart (EV). Two models are currently being manufactured in China and exported to 17 EU member states. A third model has been announced. VW manufactures the Cupra Tavascan (EV) at a Chinese plant. The Tavascan is exported to the EU.
BMW, VW and Mercedes remain silent about the number of units exported to Europe. In terms of total registrations in the EU, German EVs manufactured in China do not play a significant role. However, the companies had firmly included them in their plans to meet the EU fleet-wide emissions. EVs imported from China, which count as zero grams in the CO2 emissions balance, were supposed to reduce the fleet limits and help avoid fines.
This strategy might fail: If EV sales in the EU fall due to the higher tariffs, the fleet-wide emissions of companies will worsen. This means that BMW, Mercedes and VW will have a harder time complying with the stricter fleet limits in 2025. The fines for 2025 could be even higher than recently estimated (15 billion euros).
Undeterred by the cancellation of the Ramstein meeting, which was scheduled for Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi traveled through Western Europe on Thursday. At meetings with heads of government in London, Paris and in the evening in Rome, as well as this Friday in Berlin, the Ukrainian President is promoting his plan for victory. In London, he also met with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Zelenskyi wants permission from the UK and France to use the Storm Shadow (UK) and Scalp (France) cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine against targets on Russian territory. However, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday: “There has been no change in the British government’s position on the use of long-range missiles.”
The Ukrainian president is hoping to gain territory in order to strengthen his negotiating position. The Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” had speculated that Zelenskyi was prepared to agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine received security guarantees from the USA in return and could join the EU quickly. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sharply rejected the “manipulative representations of some foreign media” on Thursday evening.
One basis for the Italian interpretation was a tweet by Zelenskyi on Wednesday evening, in which he wrote: “The situation on the battlefield offers the opportunity to end the war by 2025 at the latest through decisive action.” Zelenskyi also wrote that a NATO invitation to Ukraine and future membership would be “a real step towards peace”. Without the certainty that Ukraine would never be subjugated by Russia, peace would not be possible.
With regard to the peace summit, which is to take place this year, Zelenskyi continued: “In October, November and December we have a real chance to move things in the direction of peace and lasting stability.”
Zelenskyi knows that his country’s resilience ultimately depends on support from abroad. And there are several foreseeable risks. Even if Donald Trump, who maintained direct contact with Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin after his term in office, is not elected as US president, the level of aid from Washington is uncertain.
Populists in the EU pose a further risk. They question aid for Kyiv, particularly during election campaigns; in Germany, such voices can be found in both the AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance, which considers itself to be on the left. The envy debates they are stirring up are bearing fruit. The total amount of aid for Ukraine is rather small compared to the amount spent on other crises. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the total EU funds up to and including August 2024 amounted to just under one-eighth of the funds to combat the economic impact of Covid.
The main problem is the dependency that exists between European and US support, as the US alone provides more than half of the military aid, explains Pietro Bomprezzi when asked. He heads the Ukraine Support Tracker project at the Kiel Institute. And he points to another problem: “The military-industrial expansion in Europe is currently slower than that in Russia.”
Putin’s government is planning to spend a third of the 2025 state budget on the military and the defense industry – 32.4 percent of all spending, three percentage points more than this year. Despite 14 sanctions packages, the regime has stabilized the economy, at least for the foreseeable future. During a visit to Berlin this week, Lev Gudkov, one of Russia’s most experienced and respected sociologists, summarized the situation in his home country as follows: “There is no way Russia will end the war due to economic exhaustion.”
Four months after the European elections, the European far-right parties are still on the upswing. In the Austrian parliamentary elections at the end of September, the FPÖ (PfE) became the strongest party, while far-right parties could finish in second place in the Lithuanian and Bulgarian parliamentary elections this October. The three far-right parties are also making further gains at EU level. In the base scenario of the current seat projection, they would achieve a total of 196 seats. That is nine more than in the European elections in June and ten more than in the most recent projection in August.
This upswing is mainly due to the “Patriots for Europe”, the largest of the three far-right groups. The PfE not only made slight gains in Austria, but also in several other member states. They are also benefiting from the first parliamentary group change of the new legislative period: At the beginning of October, it was joined by two previously non-attached MEPs from the Polish Konfederacja. In total, the PfE now has 96 seats (+8 compared to August), a new all-time high.
The two other far-right groups – the ECR with the Polish PiS and the Italian Fratelli d’Italia and the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) group with the German AfD – can only make slight gains in each case. In the projection, the ECR has 74 seats (+1), the ESN 26 (+1).
The EPP, on the other hand, has suffered losses: After making slight gains in the August projection, it has now fallen slightly below its result in the European elections in June (186/-5). However, most of these losses are only small fluctuations, often within the margin of error of the polls, which only happen to point in the same direction. There is also a clear counter-trend in Hungary, where the Tisza party led by shooting star Péter Magyar, which joined the EPP group after the European elections, is making strong gains and is now only just behind Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz (PfE) in some polls.
However, Tisza’s gains are largely at the expense of other Hungarian opposition parties – such as the social democratic DK. The past few weeks have also been rather mixed for the European Social Democrats: While they made slight gains in Germany and Greece, they ended their brief summer highs in Italy and Spain. Overall, the social democratic S&D group has 136 seats, one less than in the last projection.
The liberal Renew Group (79 seats/+2) is in a slightly better position. It is benefiting above all from developments in Italy, where the alliance of the two parties IV and +Europa (which ran in the European elections under the name “Stati Uniti d’Europa”) would now narrowly overcome the national four-percent hurdle. The Liberals, on the other hand, are in trouble in Bulgaria, where their member party DPS split into two competing lists shortly before the national parliamentary elections.
As in 2014 and 2019, the European Greens are suffering from a European election hangover: after making significant gains shortly before the election, they have slumped again in the polls after the election. They are currently struggling in Germany and Denmark, among others; they also fell slightly short of expectations in the Austrian elections. Overall, the Greens/EFA group still has 41 seats (-4), falling behind the Left Group (44 seats/±0).
The latter has made gains in the Netherlands, among other countries, while its Greek member party Syriza is plagued by internal power struggles. The recent split in the European Left Party has no impact on the projection: the old European Left and the new European Left Alliance continue to form a joint parliamentary group.
The non-attached parties have slightly fewer seats than in August (29/-2), mainly due to the PfE accession of Konfederacja. Finally, there were few changes among the “other” parties – i.e. parties that are not represented in the European Parliament and cannot be clearly assigned to a political group (9 seats/±0).
As there are no pan-European election polls, the seat projection is based on aggregated national polls and election results from all member states. In the baseline scenario, all national parties are assigned to their current parliamentary group (or the parliamentary group of their European umbrella party); parties without a clear assignment are shown as “other”.
The dynamic scenario assigns all “other” parties to a parliamentary group that they could plausibly join and also takes into account possible future changes of parliamentary group by parties already represented in parliament. Currently, however, the “other” seats would be so widely distributed across the parliamentary groups that the two scenarios hardly differ. A more detailed breakdown of the results as well as information on the data basis and methodology of the projection can be found on the blog “The (European) Federalist“.