The EU centre-left parties look on course to win less than 20% of the vote across the continent in the upcoming European Parliament elections, a record low for the EU’s social democrats.
A study conducted by Italy’s Istituto Cattaneo found that the parties of both of the centre-left and centre-right could both lose so many seats in next year’s contest that they would no longer have a majority together in the EU legislature.
But across the continent the once dominant socialist group is on course to suffer the most humiliating losses to new lows, while far-right and nationalist groups benefit.
The losses are particularly deep because the socialist group is losing one of Europe’s highest polling centre-left parties, Labour – which won’t be able to participate in the next European Parliament elections due to Brexit.
Labour, which has taken a radical turn most of its sister parties have yet to follow, would win around 35 to 40% of the vote in a general election, according to most polls.
The Istituto Cattaneo study gathers data from polling across the continent and finds that the socialists will likely win 19.7%, down from 24.9% in the last elections in 2014.
The centre-right European People’s Party group is on course for 25.1%, down from 32% – an even steeper fall, but from a higher base. Liberals, Greens, and leftists are all shown slightly down or static, while nationalists, eurosceptics and the far-right groups make progress.
The hollowing out of the centre comes as German chancellor Angela Merkel announces her retirement from politics by 2021.
The study’s authors say the elections are likely to result in “a substantial reduction in the seats of the European People's Party (EPP) and the socialists” as well as “a strengthening of the Eurogroups in which the so-called ‘sovereigntist’ and ‘populist’ forces are present”
This would mean “the consequent impossibility of reaching the parliamentary majority with the sum of centre-right and centre-left and the need to find a ‘third leg’ in the support of the liberal group (Alde) or in a radical restructuring of groups”, they argue.
The institute however warns that the numbers may change before the elections as the campaign has not yet begun, and most of the polls used are based on voting intentions for national general elections – which could differ from the final EP vote.
While it is notoriously difficult to poll European Parliament elections because of the cacophony of different national electoral races, the results appear to square well with those of national elections in the intervening time.
Most main centre-left social democratic parties have been hollowed out from their formerly dominant positions: Germany’s SPD is polling around 14%, the Netherlands’ Labour party around 11%, and France’s Parti Socialiste around 6%, while in Greece Pasok has been forced to fold into a wider electoral alliance polling about 7%.
The socialist group, officially known as the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in Europe, was the largest group in the European Parliament in all elections until 1999, when it was eclipsed by the centre-right.
In July speaking in the Netherlands Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told a congress of Labour’s sister parties that they risked looking like another part of the establishment by “supporting a failed economic system rigged for the wealthy”.
He warned that “fake populists and migrant-baiters of the far-right” would benefit from the demise of the centre-left, which had in the past “delivered enormous advances for working people” but was now losing ground.
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