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On the day that the European election campaign begins in the Spanish state, the Centre for Sociological Studies (CIS) predicts that the Socialists (PSOE) will win the 2024 EU elections in Spain on June 9th. In a survey published this Thursday, the public polling agency calculates that the Socialists led by current third deputy PM Teresa Ribera would obtain 27.3% of the votes; ahead of the 22.8% that the People's Party (PP) list headed by Dolors Montserrat would get. Specifically, it forecasts from 21 to 24 MEPs for the Socialists and 18-20 for the PP. On the other hand, it calculates that the Ara Repúbliques (Now Republics) candidacy (ERC+Bildu+BNG) could get two or three MEPs with 3.6% of the votes, and the Together for Catalonia list Junts i Lliures per Europaone or two representatives with 1.8% of the votes. The Basque Nationalists (PNV) run the risk of being left out of the European Parliament: the CIS forecast between one seat or none at all, with 0.9% of the total votes in Spain. Spanish-cast votes on June 9th will decide 61 members of the 720-member European Parliament.

The CIS's May 2024 survey on the election to the European Parliament in Spain / Graphic: Pedro Ruiz

 

The third largest Spanish party in the European Parliament would be extreme-right Vox with five or six deputies (9.2% of the votes). In fact, the CIS also predicts says that Spain will send a second far-right party to Brussels, the formation Se Acabó la Fiesta ("The Party is Over") headed by the extremist communicator Alvise Pérez, with one or two MEPs and 3.2% of the votes. Sumar would manage to send four parliamentarians (5.2%) to Europe and relatively close behind would be its left-wing rival Podemos under Irene Monterowith two or three seats (3.8%). One of the surprises of this poll is that, in contrast with the trend in other recent elections, it predicts that Ciudadanos (Cs) will maintain some representations in Brussels with one or two MEPs (1.4%).

In the previous elections to the European Parliament, those of the year 2019, the PSOE beat the PP by 20 to 12 MEPs (32.84% and 20.13% of the votes). It should also be noted that in those elections Ciudadanos managed to send seven representatives to Brussels (12.7% of the votes). Podemos got six MEPs (10.05%) and Vox won 3 seats (6.2%). The Ara Repúbliques candidacy - which in 2019 was also a coalition between Catalonia's ERC, the Basque Country's Bildu and Galicia's BNG - sent three representatives to Brussels with 5.61% of the vote. Junts got two (4.58%) and the CEUS coalition (PNV, Canarian Coalition and others) managed to send one MEP.

This survey should also be compared with the results of the last general election in Spain, on July 23rd 2023, that being the last time that all Spanish citizens voted together in an election. On that occasion, almost a year ago, the PP won the elections with 33.06% of the votes. But it could not reach the absolute majority even when combining with Vox (12.38%). In those elections, the PSOE came in second place with 31.68% of the support; and Sumar won 12.33% of votes. With respect to the Catalan parties, ERC, Bildu and BNG obtained, separately, 1.89% of the votes, 1.36% and 0.62%, respectively. Junts got 1.60% of the votes; the PNV, 1.12%, and the Canarian Coalition 0.47%.

Minimum (left) and maximum (right) estimates of vote percentages that Spanish candidacies would obtain in the European election, from CIS's May poll

How do the European elections work in Spain?

The elections to the European Parliament are held every five years and in 2024 will serve to send 720 MEPs to the chamber in Brussels (and its alternate location, Strasbourg), a role call that will contain 15 deputies more than after the 2019 elections. Of these 720, a total of 61 - two more than in 2019 - will be elected by European voters who are registered to vote in Spain. As for the constituencies into which the national territory is divided for the purposes of the European elections, there is only one: a single constituency covers the whole Spanish state, and the numbers of votes cast are used to assign the 61 seats proportionately among the candidacies using the d'Hondt system. With only one constituency, this means that voters have the same lists of candidates to choose from regardless of where they are registered to vote within Spain. In other words: a madrileño could vote for a pro-independence party and a catalana could vote for a Basque candidacy, for example.