European Parliament Elections
Every European Parliament election from the first direct vote in 1979 to 2024: the political groups, the seats, the turnout, the presidents each Parliament made, and the story of the world's only transnational election.
Elections
10
1979–2024, every five years
Latest
2024
EPP largest · Ursula von der Leyen
MEPs today
720
361 for a majority · 27 member states
Chamber growth
410 → 720
9 states in 1979 to 27 today
The chronology
All ten elections, newest first, in three eras. Click any election for the full group composition and the story.
The polycrisis parliaments · 2014–2024
Three elections fought amid the euro crisis, migration, Brexit, a pandemic and war in Ukraine. The Spitzenkandidat experiment made and then unmade itself, the grand-coalition duopoly lost its combined majority for the first time in 2019, turnout finally rebounded, and the radical right kept growing until, by 2024, it filled three separate groups.
Enlargement & empowerment · 1999–2009
Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon made the Parliament a genuine co-legislator just as the Union grew from 15 states to 27. The centre-right EPP overtook the Socialists in 1999 and has been the largest group ever since, while turnout slid below 50% and kept going.
The Community years · 1979–1994
The world's first directly elected transnational parliament, chosen by nine countries in 1979 and twelve by 1994. It began with few real powers, a chamber of national delegations grouped loosely into families, and turnout that started at 62% and never stopped falling.
Five decades in charts
The three long stories of the European election: voters drifting away and coming back, the duopoly eroding, and the chamber growing with the Union. Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout, 1979–2024
Eight consecutive declines from 62% to 42.5% — then a reversal in 2019, the first rise in the Parliament's history, sustained in 2024.
The grand coalition's erosion
The EPP and Socialist families together held two-thirds of the chamber into the 2000s; since 2019 they no longer command a majority between them, forcing three-way deals with the liberals.
The chamber grows with the Union
From 410 seats for nine states in 1979 to a peak of 751 for twenty-eight — then the first shrinkage in 2024's post-Brexit Parliament of 720. Hover for the member-state count at each election.
How European Parliament elections work
27 national elections at once
There is no single European ballot: each member state elects its MEPs under its own rules over a four-day window, using some form of proportional representation — a requirement since 1999, which is why Britain's 1989 Greens won 15% and zero seats.
Degressive proportionality
Seats are allocated to states by population, but smaller states get more MEPs per citizen: Malta's six seats represent about 90,000 people each, Germany's 96 nearly 900,000.
National parties, European groups
Voters choose among national parties, which then sit in transnational groups — a group needs 23 MEPs from at least a quarter of member states. Groups control speaking time, committee chairs and the money.
The Parliament's power
Once a talking shop, now co-legislator on most EU law: it amends and can veto legislation and budgets, confirms and can dismiss the European Commission, and since 2014 has fought the Council over who picks the Commission president.