”All eyes will now be on the new centrist group, created by merging French President  Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche party and ALDE (Alliance of Liberal and Democrats), which is now the third strongest with 105 MEPs. ‘’Macron has not formally supported either the EPP or the S&D, but diplomatic sources say contacts with the Social Democrats have been established. But Macron’s position is somewhat weakened, despite his pro-European, pro-reform drive of the past year, as he lost at home to his nemesis Le Pen.”

BRUSSELS—The conservative center-right European People’s Party (EPP)  won the most seats in the 751-seat European Parliament following EU elections this week in the 28 EU member states followed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) but even together the two groups will have difficult to foster an absolute majority as elections resulted in important gains for the Greens, the Liberals (thanks to French President Macron’s party joining the group) and for the extreme-right and populist parties.

Voter turnout surged across the Continent to exceed 50 % for the first time in a quarter-century — suggesting renewed relevance for the EU amid Britain’s so-far failed effort to quit the bloc, and mounting external challenges from Russia, China and the United States, writes David Herszenhorn in Politico.eu.

Results show the EPP is likely to hold 179 seats — a sharp decline from the 216 it won last time, followed by the S&D with 150 seats, down from 187. The two groups lost their joint majority in the EU parliament for the first time. The EPP lost a lot of support in Western Europe – France, Spain, the Nordics, but stayed strong or even rose in Austria, Germany, and Eastern Europe – Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia, reports Euractiv.com

The Greens were the biggest surprise, increasing their number of seats to 67 from 50, thanks to a strong showing in Germany and France.

The Euroskeptics and far-right populists within the Europe of Nations (ENF)  improved, but fell short of reaching one-third of all MEPs as they wished in order to disrupt the assembly, despite the victory of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally  in France – which becomes the first party-  and Matteo Salvini in Italy.

German Manfred Weber, the EPP’s candidate for the important post of President of the European Commission, currently held by Jean-Claude Juncker, declared : “If we are the strongest group, then every citizen will say that the strongest group will have the right to make the…president of the Commission.’’

“There is no majority against the EPP possible,” Weber said, calling for a  broad pro-EU coalition. “When I look at the figures, I don’t see a majority against liberals, socialists, EPP. What I would ask us to do is to join our forces and work together”.

According to Zoran Radosavljevic from Euractiv.com, all eyes will now be on the new centrist group, created by merging French President  Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche party and ALDE (Alliance of Liberal and Democrats), which is now the third strongest with 105 MEPs. ‘’Macron has not formally supported either the EPP or the S&D, but diplomatic sources say contacts with the Social Democrats have been established. But Macron’s position is somewhat weakened, despite his pro-European, pro-reform drive of the past year, as he lost at home to his nemesis Le Pen,’’ writes the EU affairs publication.

The biggest individual winner was Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s party who won more than 50% of votes.  The Lega party of Italy’s Salvini got around 30% but failed to become the biggest single party in the Parliament. Salvini plans to set up a new Eurosceptic group in the Parliament.

In Germany, the Green Party became second (20.7% of votes) to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU (28.7%).

In the U.K. the Conservative Party and Labour Party lost seats as pro-Brexit party led by Nigel Farage made big gains ahead of October 31, the date set for Britain to leave the EU.