Only the Greens/EFA group will have parity, with 50.9% female MEPs within its ranks.
The proportion of women in the European Parliament has decreased for the first time ever, data shows, while the average age has slightly increased.
The 720 newly-elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will head to Strasbourg next week for the first plenary session of the 10th legislature.
Data from EUMatrix shows that women will account for 38.75% of the MEPs.
“It is, in fact, the first time since elections for the European Parliament were held in 1979, that the proportion of women has decreased compared to the previous term,” Doru Frantescu, the founder and CEO of the socio-political research platform, told Euronews.
“It’s not a big decrease, just 1%. But still, it is the first time that the upward trend towards parity has not occurred,” he added.
Only the Greens/EFA group will have parity, with 50.9% female MEPs within its ranks. The Left and centrist Renew come next at around 45% while just over a fifth (21.7%) of MEPs from the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) will be female – the lowest tally from all groups.
The lower proportion of women, Frantescu said, can be explained by the election results, which saw the Greens/EFA, Renew and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) lose seats. Only The Left group increased its tally of MEPs on the left wing of the hemicycle.
Meanwhile, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and ECR gained seats as did far-right Eurosceptic forces which now form two groups: Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations.
“Traditionally, there is a greater representation of women in centre and left-wing groups. Therefore, it is a mainly sociological phenomenon, it has nothing to do with the possibility of women’s participation in politics,” Frantescu said.
Non-traditional parties attract younger MEPs
The average age has notched up very slightly from 49.5 years to 50-year-old, EUMatrix has found, with about a fifth of MEPs below 40 and another fifth over 60 years old.
The youngest MEP is 23-year-old Austrian climate activist Lena Schilling and the oldest is 76-year-old Leoluca Orlando, a former mayor of Palermo, both from the Greens/EFA group.
“Younger people tend to opt for more recently created parties, such as the Greens (41.5%) and some of the new left-wing parties. The more traditional parties have a slightly higher average age,” Frantescu said.
The EPP has the lowest share of MEPs under 40 (11.17%), while the newly-formed far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations and the Greens/EFA have the highest, at 32.14% and 41.51% respectively.
“In general, young people who want to get involved in politics have to find the fastest way to the top. And the fastest way is not through traditional parties, because there are still many important personalities who play a leading role,” Frantescu said.
“This is why we are seeing a proliferation of new parties across the continent, including on the radical right, because young people want to get involved. They realise that it is now easier to create new political movements and that is good for democracy. On the other hand, it is more negative in terms of stability and predictability of the political spectrum. There is a lot of debate about this, but I would say that, in general, political life is becoming more dynamic,” he added.
Most MEPs from non-governing parties
Another interesting statistic from the new parliament is that nearly two-thirds (61.5%) of MEPs hail from non-governing parties.
This could impact inter-institution relations, Frantescu said, as “these MEPs have no interest in supporting what their government defends at the level of the European Council”.
“Therefore, they often behave in opposition to the Council and the Commission, especially because it is not their parties that chose the commissioners. In the case of the European Commission, they are more interested in criticising, in monitoring,” he added.
Two of the most impacted member states are France and Germany, seen as the bloc’s power engine.
“Eighty-five per cent of French deputies in the European Parliament do not belong to the party of the current government in Paris, of President Emmanuel Macron. This means that the majority of MEPs will criticise everything Macron does in the European Council,” Frantescu said
“In Germany, the parties in power also performed very, very poorly, as the majority of deputies come from the CDU (center-right) and the Alternative for Germany (far-right). Only in a few countries, such as Italy, Poland and Greece, did government parties manage to win elections.”
Lastly, over half of MEPs are newcomers, and it should take about six months for them to get the ropes of how the European Parliament works, Frantescu estimated.
Returning ones should therefore have the advantage as they “know how to become more influential and can more easily become rapporteurs and committee presidents,” he said.
