The European parliamentary elections in May 2019 will mark the start of a major process of renewal for European institutions. After Brexit, the European parliament will have only 705 seats, from 751 at present. Aggregating national polls can help produce projections for the make-up of the new parliament, although naturally these need to be treated with some caution. According to current projection by Poll of Polls, a weakening position for the dominant conservative and social-democrat groupings may be on a sufficient scale to prevent the PPE and S&D alliances from taking a majority in the European parliament. The liberal/centrist ALDE group, if its rising poll numbers feed through into the ballot boxes, hopes therefore to become a supportive force able to forge compromises
