While campaigning is continuing in the individual countries, the parties represented in the European Parliament are entering the closing weeks of the legislative period. The political landscape is set to change in the European Parliament after the 2019 European elections. But what does it look like now? The parliaments and governments database (ParlGov) of Bremen University shows the positions of the parties under the categories left-wing/right-wing and anti-EU/pro-EU. The parties and groups in the European Parliament can be located politically on the basis of these characteristics.

The European Parliament: What does your party stand for?

Are you interested in where a particular party lies in the political landscape of the European Parliament? Select it in the search box for all the parties or via the relevant EU member state. For all the parties in a group, click on the button of the relevant group.

The European Parliament: Parties close to the centre back the EU

The horseshoe shape of the way the party landscape is arranged is immediately noticeable. This leads to the following thesis: A low value in the attitude to the EU - in other words a negative view - in most cases corresponds to an extreme value on the left-right scale. Put another way, parties close to the middle see the EU in a more positive light than parties on the far left or the far right. At the same time, no party or group is in the centre. The closest are Poland’s Polskie Stronnictwo Ludow (EVP) and Suomen Keskusta (ALDE) from Finland.

The European Parliament: Evident differences in the groups

The S&D (Social Democrats), EPP (Christian Democrats) and ALDE (Liberals) tend to be pro-EU. The Greens/EFA could also be regarded as largely pro-EU, but there are also parties in this group taking a clearly anti-EU line. In their attitude to the EU, both the GUE/NGL and the EFDD and ECR are close to the neutral centre: EFDD and ECR more pro-EU, GUE/NGL more anti-EU. The parties of the ENF are uniformly at the bottom right, anti-EU corner of the map.

National patterns can also be discerned in the European Parliament, with most of the countries revealing a varied party landscape. By contrast, many of the Italian parties lie to the right of centre. Among the few exceptions are the Movimento 5 Stelle and the Partito Democratico, which however put up the most members. Most of the Greek parties lie to the left of centre.