9 months into the new European Parliament, we now have a representative sample of data that offers insights into how legislation will be shaped in the current European Parliament (EP).

As we predicted before last year’s elections, the balance of power has shifted to the right, with the European People's Party (EPP) emerging as the new kingmaker group.

However, forming majorities is becoming increasingly complicated due to the growing number of political groups, internal divisions, and the shifting coalition dynamics on a case-by-case basis. This report examines the coalition trends that will shape in the EP the legislation that emerges from the European Commission.

Below are our key takeaways from after the analysis of the first 1200 roll-call votes in the European Parliament from July 2024 until April 2025.

Secondly, we have also collected and examined data on engagements between MEPs and socio-economic stakeholders and we provide below a first set of facts and figures (while a more comprehensive research report, that looks in detail into these engagements, will come later).

Note: For a full breakdown of group performance across different policy fields, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. 

The EPP group wins the most votes and it sides with the centre-left most of the time

The EPP is now the group that secures a majority in most votes, slightly ahead of Renew. This marks a change from the previous term when Renew Europe was the most frequent winner of votes. Although a significant share of the votes at the beginning of the term are related to foreign policy, the EPP has also prevailed on issues such as the EU budget size, free trade agreements, and climate policy.

However, this dynamic varies significantly across policy areas. For instance, left-wing factions perform best in agricultural policy, whether on GMOs, pesticides, or agri-food imports, continuing to push for environmentally restrictive or protectionist policies.

Importantly, the EPP still aligns more frequently with the centre-left than with right-wing factions on most topics, including digital and climate policy, policy areas where we expect a lot to happen this year, legislatively-wise. This suggests that the rightward shift should not be equated with a drastic deregulatory push, as centre-left forces still retain significant leverage as long as they are the needed / preferred coalition partner of the EPP. Thus, so far into the new political cycle the EPP has not used too much its coalition potential that, at least on paper, it now has "to its right". Current data indicates that the EPP prefers to use this potential more as a leverage in the negotiations with the centre-left, and activate it only selectively, when these negotiations fail. However, this is a delicate balancing game which sometimes ends with "no agreement whatsoever", as it happened in the case of the resolution on the EU's 2025 budget. 

The big change compared to the previous EP terms is, however, that the EPP is no longer arithmetically compelled to compromise with the centre-left camp, as was the case in the previous parliament, when EPP's position was therefore weaker. In the new Parliament, for example, the EPP did manage to defeat the “green” camp (when it could not reach an agreement with it) to push through a softer version of the anti-deforestation rules, benefiting from the votes of ECR, PfE and ESN.

The growing influence of the EPP is also evident in the analysis of successful amendments during plenary sessions (NB: this analysis is based on amendments voted by roll call). The chart below illustrates that the success rate of EPP amendments in plenary has increased significantly compared to the previous term of the European Parliament. EPP amendments are now the most successful overall, therefore surpassing the proposals by the S&D and Renew groups.

Similarly, the ECR is playing an increasingly prominent role in this term. This is reflected in its amendment success rate: approximately one in three ECR amendments has been adopted. At present, ECR amendments have a greater chance of success than those tabled by the Greens/EFA, whose influence has declined following the 2024 elections. Most of the ECR’s successful amendments focus on foreign policy (e.g., assertive measures toward Russia), defense (e.g., increased support for frontier countries), and trade agreements (e.g., protectionist provisions for farmers).

As the European Parliament shifts towards the right, we also see some cracks in the "cordon sanitaire" applied to the proposals by the more nationalist right-wing parties. While, in the previous term, only three ID amendments were approved throughout the entire parliamentary mandate (2019–2024), in the current term the amendments submitted by the Patriots and the ESN have a somewhat higher success rate, as 11 of these have already been approved. 

However, their chances remain considerably lower than those of other groups. So far, their successful amendments concern issues where right-wing groups are aligned, such as supporting funding for farmers, backing an assertive approach towards Venezuela and Iran, as well as stricter migration policies (e.g., increased border control funding or external return hubs for migrants) and a more critical stance on the influence of Islam in Europe.

EPP’s flexible coalition-making backfires sometimes

All of this does not mean that the EPP can have its way on all matters - it still loses a few votes, and sometimes on important matters. A notable example was the failed resolution on the EU budget for 2025. The EPP aligned with right-wing groups to pass strict migration-related amendments, prompting S&D, Renew, the Greens, and The Left to vote against the entire text at the end of the voting process, which resulted in the rejection of the final document. In this case, the EPP’s coalition strategy alienated too many MEPs and prevented the formation of a majority needed to pass the final resolution.

Such outcomes pose challenges for stakeholders engaging with the European Parliament, as victories on individual amendments or paragraphs lose significance when the resolution is rejected as a whole.

Eroding political centre increasingly vulnerable to coalitions between fringe groups

Importantly, on certain topics, groups such as ECR or The Left can rely on support from the opposite end of the political spectrum, positioning themselves against the political center.

A notable example was an ECR amendment on pharmaceutical transparency, which was rejected by only 14 votes—a narrow margin that highlights how, on some issues, the far-left and far-right together can almost outvote the centrist groups (see especially the level of support by the Greens and The Left for this amendment).

Similarly, proposals by The Left, such as their rejection of the Mercosur deal, can gain support from the nationalist and protectionist right-wing factions. In the example below, a proposal by The Left to reject the Mercosur agreement was only narrowly defeated.

This serves as an important reminder of the consequences of the shrinking political center, which means that compromises between the EPP, S&D, and Renew fail if just a few internal defections occur within these groups. At least four groups are now needed to ensure a safe majority.

Groups do not vote as monoliths, and on contentious issues every vote counts

MEPs do not vote as blocs, even within the same political group, when it comes to key decisions such as sensitive paragraphs or amendments. Despite the right-wing having larger numbers, the center-left groups are more cohesive than their center-right and right-wing counterparts, which gives them an opportunity to prevail on certain issues.

This is the case for policies on which the EPP is more divided, such as social policy, gender policy, or even regulatory matters such as agri-food and some of the green topics. We expect the left-leaning camp to try to exploit internal divisions within the EPP, particularly in order to maintain support for social and green agendas.

Renew is the group most engaged by stakeholders

We also collected and analyzed the statistics related to meetings declared by MEPs with socio-economic stakeholders from July 2024 to December 2024. According to the published data, Renew is the group most engaged with, on average, by stakeholders such as trade organizations, NGOs, trade unions, and diplomatic missions, among others. On average, Renew MEPs declared over 30 meetings, followed by the center-left groups. At the opposite end, MEPs from right-wing nationalist groups reported a much smaller number of meetings, below 9 per MEP. This could be due to either socio-economic stakeholders' reluctance to engage with them or a lower reporting rate—or a combination of both reasons. The analysis of the meetings shows that ESN MEPs primarily declare meetings with representatives of foreign countries and right-wing political entities, while Patriots MEPs report a more diverse range of meetings with companies, trade associations, and a few NGOs.

Coming soon from EUmatrix:

The 1st edition of the MEPs’ Influence Index from the 10th EP (an objective, data-driven assessment which was very popular in the past EP term)

The 1st edition of the Advocacy Engagement Index (a new, data-driven assessment of the engagements between socio-economic stakeholders, MEPs, and the Commission). 

And much more. 

Feel free to contact us at [email protected] to manifest your interest for tailored analysis, presentations to your groups or subscription to the premium sections of our platform (which provide detailed forecast regarding the views and influence of MEPs, Commissioners and Governments on all upcoming legislation, as well as socio-political trends in the EU, media monitoring and more).