2024 was a challenging year for any government’s ruling party. Incumbent governments struggled as the cost-of-living crisis disgruntled voters around the globe. This was especially true for junior coalition partners, who often bear the brunt of electoral backlash. Green parties – whose electoral performance is closely linked to a country’s economy – were no exception to the rule this year. This article reviews the performance of European Green Party (EGP) affiliates in elections in Europe in 2024, drawing the conclusion that those in government suffered while those in opposition did less so.
Anti-government backlash hurts some Green parties
On 9 June, in the 150-seat Belgian national parliamentary (lower house) election, the EGP member in the French community, Ecolo, won 3 (-10) seats, which marked the strongest decline of any party running in the election. Meanwhile, the EGP member competing in the Flemish-speaking community, Groen, won 6 seats (-2). However, coalition negotiations are still ongoing, neither party is set to be part of the next government. Ecolo and Groen had been members of the seven-party Vivaldi coalition (consisting of various Christian-democratic, liberal, Green and social-democratic parties). The EGP members had been particularly attacked for their environmentalist ‘Good Move’ policy to reduce car usage in Brussels.
On 29 September, the Austrian national parliamentary (lower house) election took place. The coalition between the centre-right ÖVP (European People’s Party) and its junior partner, the EGP member in Austria, Die Grünen, lost their parliamentary majority. While Die Grünen’s decline in support was less than the ÖVP’s, they only won 13.9% (-5.7 points) and 16 seats (-10) in the 183-seat National Council. After showcasing an above-average performance in 2019, their decline can be attributed to the government’s policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and their management of the cost-of-living crisis. Government coalition talks are ongoing, but as of now, it looks like Die Grünen will not be part of the next government.
On 29 November, elections to the national parliament of the Republic of Ireland, Dáil Éireann, took place. The EGP member, the Green Party, lost 11 out of their 12 seats, while the Dáil expanded in size from 160 to 174 seats. They had previously entered the national government coalition as the junior partner to two right-of-centre parties, Fianna Fáil (Renew Europe) and the Fine Gael (European People’s Party) in 2020. History seems to have somewhat repeated itself: the Irish Greens had lost significant support in 2011 when they first entered government in a coalition with Fianna Fáil. This time, evidence suggests that voters punished the Greens for increasing fuel taxes and energy costs, as the cost of living was the second most important issue for Irish voters.
On 30 November, the Icelandic left-wing and environmentalist Vinstri Græn party suffered its worst election result ever, losing all 8 seats in the 63-seat national parliament, the Althing, because it failed to win more than 5% of the vote. The party is not a member of the European Greens, but its leader spoke at the 2022 European Greens Congress, and it is ideologically closely aligned with the Europarty. Undoubtedly, the resignation of popular prime minister and party leader Katrín Jakobsdóttir, to run for the Icelandic presidency, hurt the party, though Vinstri Græn was struggling before this. Her resignation resulted in Bjarni Benediktsson, leader of centre-right Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (an associate European People’s Party member), becoming prime minister. Benediktsson’s government collapsed after major disagreements over immigration and the economy. The party had previously been represented in the national parliament since its creation in 1999.
The 2024 European Parliament elections
In the European Parliament (EP) elections on 6–9 June, the European Green Party won 43 seats compared to 51 seats in 2019, as the legislature simultaneously expanded from 705 to 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). This result may not seem too bad, given that the 2019 election led to record support for the European Greens. However, while making some gains in other parts of Europe, the two largest national EGP member parties, the French Les Écologistes-Europe Écologie and the German Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (GRÜNE) lost significant support, leading to a loss in popular vote partially hidden by merely looking at seat figures.
Why is that? The European Parliament allocates seats based on ‘degressive proportionality’, where smaller EU nations are allocated more seats than their population would suggest under a strictly proportional system. This hides the extent of the loss in the popular vote for a European political party when it occurs predominantly in larger Member States, which for the European Greens stood at 6.6% EU-wide. Hence, the electoral failure of the European Greens in the popular vote was partially offset in the Parliament by seats that required fewer votes than German and French seats, predominantly from Eastern Europe, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia.
In Germany, GRÜNE went from winning 21 seats in 2019 to 12 seats in the European Parliament, while Les Écologistes-Europe Écologie went from winning 10 seats to 5. Polling figures suggest that the party faces an electoral backlash for being part of an incumbent unpopular coalition, which has been portrayed as disunited and unable to respond to a weakened economy. A whopping 74% of Germans disapproved of the coalition in May 2024.
Meanwhile, the failure of Les Écologistes to at least retain its 2019 levels of support may seem more puzzling. As a non-incumbent Green party, Les Écologistes should be performing reasonably well.
French opposition parties have benefited from President (and European Council member) Emmanuel Macron’s unpopularity, whose presidency was only supported by 32% of the voters at the time of the EU election. However, while the French centre-left and far-right parties were able to make gains, Les Écologistes struggled to benefit, unlike in 2019. In contrast, at the snap parliamentary election called by Emmanuel Macron following France’s EP election results (won by the far-right National Rally), the French Greens scored their best result ever, winning 25 seats compared to the 16 they won in the 2022 parliamentary election. However, this is largely because of the success of the New Popular Front, a left-of-centre electoral alliance Les Écologistes joined to avoid left-wing vote splitting in France’s 577 single-member constituencies. Therefore, Les Écologistes’ improved legislative position could mask the decline in popular support reflected in this year’s European parliamentary elections.
The 2024 European Green success stories
In Finland, EGP member Vihreä Liitto’s Pekka Haavisto lost the presidential election for a third time on 11 February. However, he was able to advance to the second round, despite left-of-centre competition by Li Andersson and Jutta Urpilainen, outperforming his previous performances by securing 48% of the vote in the second round.
Moreover, on 10 March, EGP ecosocialist member LIVRE improved on their 2022 election result, winning 4 seats (+3) and 3% (+2 points) of the vote. Animal rights party and EGP member Pessoas-Animais-Natureza (PAN) remained steady at 1 seat and 2% of the vote. Meanwhile, the incumbent centre-left Partido Socialista (PS, Party of European Socialists) government lost 13 percentage points of the vote and its absolute majority in the Portuguese Assembly. PS had been tainted by Operação Influencer, a corruption scandal that triggered the fall of Prime Minister (and European Council member) António Costa (PS). Unlike in the 2022 snap legislative elections, when all other left-wing parties were nearly completely cannibalised by a popular PS government, LIVRE may have benefited from being in opposition as PS’ support declined.
In Croatia, Možemo won 10 (+5) out of 151 seats during the national parliamentary election on 17 April, increasing their vote share from 7.0% to 9.1%. The centre-right HDZ (European People's Party) chose to form a coalition with the right-wing Domovinski pokret.
In the United Kingdom, the Green Party was able to benefit from dissatisfaction with both the incumbent Conservative government and the Labour Party on 4 July. In a first-past-the-post electoral system, the English and Welsh Greens won 4 seats in the House of Commons and 6.4% of the vote (an increase from the 1 seat they held in 2019 with 2.6% of the vote). The Greens won 2 urban seats, in Bristol and Brighton, reportedly supported by voters upset about Labour leader Keir Starmer’s moderate position on Palestine and Labour’s shift to centrist economic positions. Moreover, they won seats in the rural areas of Herefordshire and East Anglia, and also came second to Labour in 39 constituencies.
In Lithuania, new EGP member Demokratų sąjunga “Vardan Lietuvos” gained 9% of the vote in the first round of parliamentary elections on 13 October. Ultimately, it won 14 seats in the 141-seat Seimas and is now in government with the centre-left Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija (Party of European Socialists) and the right-wing Politinė partija “Nemuno Aušra”.
Lastly, presidential elections took place in Russia on 17 March. However, EGP member Zelenaya Rossia did not participate. Presidential elections also took place in Azerbaijan (7 February) and Slovakia (23 March), while national parliamentary elections took place in Belarus (25 February). However, no European Green Party members are present in these countries. Elections in Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia are neither free nor fair. Local and regional elections took place in several countries. A complete list can be accessed here: https://europeelects.eu/calendar.
Sections of this article were reviewed by Europe Elects country experts: Lovro Morovic (Croatia), Rithwik Narendra (Iceland and Lithuania), Matthias Troude (France), Matthew Nicolson (United Kingdom), Julien Mathias (Portugal), Mingo Garscha (Austria) and Tobias Gerhard Schminke (overall).
The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union.