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Despite slipping back slightly since last week, the EPP remain just ahead of S&D: on 217 to 208 seats. While S&D parties have remained stable in European election polls in most countries over the past week, EPP parties have fallen slightly in France, Finland and Poland.
A 9-seat difference between these two groups is still only a small lead given the margins of error in the polls and the poll fluctuations over the past few weeks.
Amongst the non-attached MEPs and not currently attached national parties, our latest forecast suggests that the seven parties who could form a new radical right group with Le Pen and Wilders will
Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, the lead candidate and aspirant Commission President insisted that “This time, the elections are different.”
Saying that the character of the elections had changed after Lisbon, he insisted that the victor would be installed in Berlaymont, the HQ of the European Commission – as President.
"The candidate of the political group that will be the strongest after the European Parliament elections will become the next Commission President." He added: "anything else would make a mockery of the democratic process that is now explicitly foreseen in the Treaty".
Juncker, a highly experienced European politician said that the crisis "has made it more urgent than ever to reacquaint our citizens with the European project". He noted that support for the EU had fallen to "historic lows".
"While here in Belgium, 47 per cent of citizens feel that they have a say in European affairs, this figure stands at just 13 per cent in Greece", he told journalists, adding that this was the reason "I decided to be the EPP’s candidate for Commission President in these European Parliament elections".
He pledged, "Over the next five years, I want to work night and day to get Europe out of this crisis". This being the same crisis that his fellow EPP leaders, Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso have repeatedly said was "over" and had been solved.
Juncker set out five priorities for the next five years:
He said, "as Commission President, I will work for a fair deal with Britain", but "the UK will need to understand that in the eurozone, we need more Europe, not less".
Juncker also declared that if appointed to the post, he would ask the Finnish government to nominate Jyrki Katainen, the country’s current Prime Minister, to the Commission, and that Juncker would give him a significant portfolio. Juncker said that he was ready to fight to have politicians rather than bureaucrats on his team.
Full reporting by EuropeDecides