In Bulgaria, although pro-European formations GERB-SDS (centre-right), DPS (liberal), and PP-DB (centre-right) earned more than 50% of the Bulgarian EP seats, the anti-European parties won a significant portion of the votes expressed on 9 June, when both the EU and the snap parliamentary elections took place. “The surprise of these elections is that if we add the votes of the Russian-friendly parties – the far-right ‘Vazrazhdane’, the BSP, and the catapulted into the parliament ‘Velichiye’ – these three formations de facto win about a third of the votes,” German political scientist Johanna Daimel told Deutsche Welle, as quoted in the Bulgarian newspaper Capital.
Stephen Bartulica is the only nationalist among the 12 elected Croatian MEPs, but that didn’t stop him from getting off at the Homeland Movement’s (far-right) headquarters from a Ferrari driven by a criminal convicted of attempted murder. “In that moment of celebration and euphoria, my judgement may not have been the best,” Bartulica told the Croatian news program Dnevnik Nova TV as reported by the daily newspaper Jutarnji List. Overall, HDZ, the centre-right party led by Croatian PM Andrej Plenkovic, won the majority of the votes. Together with the other pro-European force SDP (centre-left), they earned more than 60% of Croatia’s trust.
Maybe one of the greatest surprises of these EU elections came in Cyprus, where YouTube personality Fidias Panayiotou won a seat in the European Parliament after achieving around 20% of the votes, almost as much as the top two parties, DISY (centre-right; 24.78%) and AKEL (left-wing; 21.49%). In an editorial, the daily Cyprus Mail explained how the “low regard for the parties and the political system” made Fidias swipe the floor in the EU elections.
Like Cypriots, Romanians also elected one independent MEP: Nicu Ștefănuță, the Vice-President of the European Greens (3.08% of total votes). However, the clear winner was the coalition between the Social-democrats and the Liberals, who earned nearly 50% of the votes. The far-right parties Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and SOS won around 20% of the votes. As Răzvan Filip from the Romanian online news platform PressOneexplains, AUR was disappointed for not reaching 25% of the total votes.
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In Greece, New Democracy (centre-right) won the most votes (28,31%), sending 7 of the 21 MEPs assigned to the Hellenic country. It’s worth noting the “significant rise” seen by the communists (KKE), who have almost doubled their votes since the last EU elections (from 5.35% in 2019 to 9.25% in 2024). “A significant rise,” KKE’s General Secretary described the increase in votes, as cited by the Greek daily Efimerida ton Syntakton.
Cloudy forecast for non-EU countries
Summer is upon Europe, but the forecast in non-EU countries is not sunny. For example, Russia recently decided to increase its influence in Moldova months before the Presidential elections and the EU consultative referendum, both scheduled on 20 October. First, Victoria Borodin from the Moldovan investigative platform Ziarul de Gardă pointed out former president Igor Dodon, condemned pro-Russia oligarch Ilan Șor, and more public persons whose goals are to spread misinformation about the reasons behind the census taking place on 6 April-7 July 2024.
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And there’s even worse news. According to Măriuța Nistor from Ziarul de Gardă, Ilan Șor met in Moscow with pro-Russia agents, like Evghenia Guțul and Dmitri Constantinov, to create a new political block, called Victory, meant to destabilize Moldova. “What happened in Moscow is nothing more than an action of the secret services and other specialized institutions of the Russian Federation,” said political analyst Anatol Țăranu as quoted by Ziarul de Gardă’s Victoria Borodin.
Erdoğan’s sultanate, Russia’s copycat?
In the last month, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime proved again its authoritative shortcomings. As reported in the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, former CHP (centre-left) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu reacted to an imprisonment request received for insulting Erdogan. In his response, Kemal tells Erdoğan: “You won’t be a sultan.”
Besides imprisoning a journalist and wanting to do the same to his former rival, Erdoğan recently changed the education system by adding a new controversial curriculum. For the same Cumhuriyet, Murat Agirel explained there is “an increasing religiousization and moving away from European standards in secondary education.” We know someone else who doesn’t like European standards, don’t we?
