1999 European Parliament Election
10–13 June 1999 · Enlargement & empowerment · 626 seats, 314 for a majority · 15 member states
Weeks after the Santer Commission resigned en masse over fraud allegations, a Parliament that had just flexed real power saw the EPP overtake the Socialists for the first time since 1979, a lead it has never surrendered. Turnout fell below 50% for the first time.
President of the European Parliament before
José María Gil-Robles
EPP
President of the European Parliament after
Nicole Fontaine
EPP-ED
Largest group
EPP-ED
233 of 626 seats
Turnout
49.8%
across 15 member states
The Parliament it elected
| Share of chamber | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPP-ED | European People's Party–European Democrats | Hans-Gert Pöttering | 233 | 37.2% | |
| PES | Party of European Socialists | Enrique Barón Crespo | 180 | 28.8% | |
| ELDR | European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party | Pat Cox | 50 | 8.0% | |
| G-EFA | Greens–European Free Alliance | Heidi Hautala & Paul Lannoye | 48 | 7.7% | |
| EUL-NGL | European United Left–Nordic Green Left | Francis Wurtz | 42 | 6.7% | |
| UEN | Union for Europe of the Nations | Charles Pasqua | 31 | 4.8% | |
| TGI | Technical Group of Independents | — | 18 | — | |
| EDD | Europe of Democracies and Diversities | Jens-Peter Bonde | 16 | — | |
| NI | Non-Inscrits | — | 8 | — |
Group composition at or immediately after the Parliament's constitutive session; groups form and dissolve between elections, so totals elsewhere may differ. Vote shares are EU-wide shares for the parties that formed each group, where the source reports them.
The result by member state
How each of the 15member states' MEPs divided among the political groups. The source's by-country table differs slightly from the headline group totals (EPP-ED sums to 231 here against 233 in the headline result), reflecting members who switched groups in the Parliament's first days.
| Belgium | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 24 | |||
| Denmark | 1 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 16 | ||
| France | 21 | 22 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 5 | 6 | 87 | |
| Germany | 53 | 33 | 7 | 6 | 99 | ||||
| Ireland | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 15 | |||
| Italy | 34 | 17 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 87 | |
| Luxembourg | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| Netherlands | 9 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 31 | ||
| United Kingdom | 37 | 30 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 87 | ||
| Greece | 9 | 9 | 7 | 25 | |||||
| Spain | 29 | 24 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 65 | ||
| Portugal | 9 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 25 | ||||
| Austria | 7 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 21 | ||||
| Finland | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 16 | |||
| Sweden | 5 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 20 | |||
| Total | 231 | 180 | 50 | 48 | 42 | 31 | 26 | 16 | 624 |