Share of seats in the European Parliament won by party groups 1979-2019

The European Parliament (EP) elections set to take place in June 2024 will be the 10th elections to take place since the founding of the EP in 1979. The European Parliament is the legislative body of the European Union and is directly elected by citizens of the 27 EU member states. Since 1979, the two largest parties in the parliament have been the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D). In recent decades, the liberal/centrist group Renew Europe (formerly called ALDE) and the center-left environmentalist group Greens/EFA have grown steadily to represent around 14 and 10 percent respectively. Since the early 2000s, the right wing has increased their collective share in the parliament to almost one-fifth, with the far-right Identity and Democracy group achieving 9.72 percent of the vote in their first EP election in 2019.