The German Christian Democrat CDU/CSU alliance led by Chancellor Angela Merkel would remain the biggest single party with 29 seats, but only just ahead of Italy’s League, the far-right group now in government in Rome.

Its 27 seats are a mark of how the elections will reflect a strengthening of nationalist sentiment against established pro-EU movements across Europe. This will be the most important EU election since the first was held in 1979, Parliament’s chief spokesman Jaume Duch told a news conference on the polls.

While traditional parties are set to retain a dominance that would allow a continuation of the broad centrist majority coalition that has tended to support legislation from the EU executive, gains of about 40 percent for radicals on the right, to 14 percent of seats, may introduce more policy uncertainty.

The European People’s Party (EPP), to which Merkel belongs, would take 183 of the 705 seats, or 26 percent, in the new chamber. That is down from 29 percent at present, according to the compilation of national polling data from the 27 member states. It was published by the assembly’s staff on Monday.

That would outstrip the 135 seats for the center-left Socialists and Democrats, whose share would drop six points to 19 percent, partly due to the loss of British seats after Brexit as the parliament slims down from a total of 751 seats.

Reuters