2024 European Parliament election in Austria

2024 European Parliament election in Austria

9 June 2024
20 Austrian seats to the European Parliament
Opinion polls
Leader Reinhold Lopatka Andreas Schieder Harald Vilimsky Party ÖVP SPÖ FPÖ Alliance EPP S&D ID Last election 34.6%, 7 seats 23.9%, 5 seats 17.2%, 3 seats   Leader Lena Schilling Helmut Brandstätter Party Greens NEOS Alliance Greens–EFA Renew Last election 14.1%, 3 seats 8.4%, 1 seat

The 2024 European Parliament election in Austria will be held on 9 June 2024 as part of the 2024 European Parliament election. This will be the seventh European Parliament election held in Austria, and the first to take place after Brexit.

Background

The ÖVP was the winner of the previous election in 2019, while the SPÖ came in second and the FPÖ third. Trailing further behind were the Greens and NEOS. Other parties failed to win a seat in the new Parliament.

Electoral system

Compared to the last election, Austria is entitled to two more MEPs in this election: one assigned in 2020 due to the seat redistribution after Brexit, and one assigned in 2023 after a pre-election assessment of the Parliament composition based on the most recent population figures. The additional seat assigned in 2020 went to the Green Party. The 20 members are elected through semi-open list proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency with seats allocated through D'Hondt method. The electoral threshold is set at 4%.

All people who have Austrian citizenship and a main residence in Austria, Austrian citizens without residence in Austria (Austrians abroad) and other Union citizens (if their main residence is in Austria) are entitled to vote in the European elections in Austria. In addition, those eligible to vote must turn 16 years old by election day at the latest and be registered in the voter register/European voter register of an Austrian municipality on the deadline date. The right to stand as a candidate in the European elections is available to all those people who are entitled to vote and have reached the age of 18 on election day.

Outgoing delegation

The table shows the detailed composition of the Austrian seats at the European Parliament as of early 2024.

EP Group		Seats	Party		Seats	MEPs
	European People's Party	7 / 19		Austrian People's Party	7	Alexander Bernhuber Othmar Karas Lukas Mandl Wolfram Pirchner Christian Sagartz Barbara Thaler Angelika Winzig
	Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats	5 / 19		Social Democratic Party of Austria	5	Hannes Heide Theresa Bielowski Evelyn Regner Andreas Schieder Günther Sidl
	Identity and Democracy	3 / 19		Freedom Party of Austria	3	Roman Haider Georg Mayer Harald Vilimsky
	Greens–European Free Alliance	3 / 19		The Greens – The Green Alternative	3	Monika Vana Thomas Waitz Sarah Wiener
	Renew Europe	1 / 19		NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum	1	Claudia Gamon
Total					19
Source: European Parliament

Voter statistics

According to preliminary numbers, 6.371.165 people are eligible to vote in the election, including 44.680 Austrian citizens with their main residence abroad and 45.091 EU citizens with their main residence in Austria.

Compared to the 2019 election, the total number of eligible voters decreased by 45.012, the number of Austrian citizens with their main residence abroad decreased by 43 and the number of EU citizens with their main residence in Austria increased by 6.419.

The final number of eligible voters will be published on May 17, 2024 after an objection period.

Parties running for election

Any party which intends to be on the ballot for the election either needs to submit the signature of 1 member of the European Parliament, or 3 members of the Austrian National Council, or 2.600 valid petition signatures of eligible Austrian voters by April 26, 2024 at 5pm at the Austrian Interior Ministry.

The following parties running in the European elections are represented in the National Council and the European Parliament:

Party			European Party	Group	2019 result	Top candidate
	ÖVP	Austrian People's Party	EPP	EPP	34.6	Reinhold Lopatka
	SPÖ	Social Democratic Party of Austria	PES	S&D	23.9	Andreas Schieder
	FPÖ	Freedom Party of Austria	ID	ID	17.2	Harald Vilimsky
	GRÜNE	The Greens – The Green Alternative	EGP	Greens/EFA	14.1	Lena Schilling
	NEOS	NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum	ALDE	Renew	8.4	Helmut Brandstätter

The following other parties have announced their candidacy, are currently not represented in the National Council or in the European Parliament, but submitted the necessary amount of petition signatures to be placed on the ballot:

Party			European Party	Group	2019 result	Top candidate
	KPÖ	Communist Party of Austria	PEL	GUE/NGL	0.8	Günther Hopfgartner
	DNA	Democratic – Neutral – Authentic	unknown	unknown	—	Maria Hubmer-Mogg

The following other parties have announced their candidacy, but failed to submit the necessary amount of petition signatures by the end of the deadline:

Party			European Party	Group	2019 result	Top candidate
	VOLT	Volt Austria	Volt	Greens/EFA	—	Nini Tsiklauri & Alexander Harrer
	BESTE	Best Austria Bestes Österreich	unknown	unknown	—	David Packer
	ÖXIT	EU-Exit for Austria EU-Austritt für Österreich	unknown	unknown	—	Christian Ebner
	EUAUS	EU-Exit Party EU-Austrittspartei	unknown	unknown	—	Robert Marschall
	OMA	Clean Politics starts here Saubere Politik beginnt hier	unknown	unknown	—	Julian Gredinger

Controversy

On May 7, 2024, the newspaper Der Standard published several allegations against the lead candidate of the Green Party, Lena Schilling. She is said to have falsely claimed that the partner of a former friend of hers was to blame for a miscarriage due to domestic violence. A legal cease and desist order was signed by Schilling. In another case, Schilling said she told friends and acquaintances that she had been harassed by a journalist from a private media company; An internal investigation by the company, including the affected chats, is said to have found no relevant misconduct. Schilling is also said to have fictitiously invented her own love affair with a television journalist, but on the other hand also attributed him to relationships with other Green Party politicians. Der Standard also reported on statements from Schilling's former climate activist colleagues who attested to her problematic and manipulative dealings with younger activists in particular. Ultimately, this would also have been a reason why "Schilling distanced herself from the youth council and the climate movement".

On May 10, 2024, Der Standard reported that a young woman (which turned out to be Lena Schilling) allegedly was harassed in front of the U4 club in Vienna, which led to the resignation of the Green National Council member Clemens Stammler in October 2023. Stammler - who himself sees his resignation as unavoidable at the time - nevertheless criticized the fact that the green club leadership did not try to clarify the harassment allegations against him, but instead tried to remove the name and persona of Schilling, who was considered well-connected in the parliamentary club, "from history to keep". Rumors were even spread about the Green Party club leader, Sigrid Maurer, that she had harassed Schilling in an unpleasant and invasive manner, which both Maurer and Schilling denied.

Opinion polling

See also: Opinion polling for the 2024 European Parliament election

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	ÖVP EPP	SPÖ S&D	FPÖ ID	Grüne G/EFA	NEOS Renew	KPÖ Left	Others	Lead
OGM	7–8 May 2024	1,007	22 5	22 5	26 5	13 2	14 3	2 0	1 0	4
Lazarsfeld Society	6–8 May 2024	2,000	21 4	21 4	26 6	14 3	15 3	2 0	DNA: 1 0	5
Market	22–25 Apr 2024	842	20 4	24 5	27 6	12 2	13 3	3 0	1 0	3
Lazarsfeld Society	22–24 Apr 2024	2,000	21 4	23 5	27 6	12 2	13 3	3 0	1 0	4
Ipsos	23 Feb – 5 Mar 2024	1,000	21.0 4	22.0 5	28.2 6	13.0 3	11.8 2	2.1 0	1.9 0	6.2
Lazarsfeld Society	26–28 Feb 2024	1,000	20 4	22 5	26 5	14 3	16 3	2 0	—	4
Market	5–7 Feb 2024	800	24 5	23 5	27 6	11 2	12 2	2 0	1 0	3
Lazarsfeld Society	29–31 Jan 2024	1,000	24 5	20 4	27 6	13 2	14 3	2 0	—	3
OGM	22–31 Jan 2024	2,076	22 5	21 4	26 6	14 3	12 2	2 0	3 0	4
IFDD	25–28 Jan 2024	1,000	21 4	24 5	27 6	14 3	9 2	3 0	2 0	3
Lazarsfeld Society	11–13 Dec 2023	1,000	22 5	22 5	30 6	13 2	9 2	2 0	2 0	8
Peter Hajek	22–29 Nov 2023	1,600	23 5	24 5	30 7	12 2	7 1	3 0	1 0	6
IFDD	1–4 Oct 2023	837	25 5/6	25 5/6	25 5/6	14 3	8 1	—	3 0	Tie
2019 legislative election	29 Sep 2019	–	37.5 8	21.2 5	16.2 3	13.9 3	8.1 1	0.7 0	2.5 0	16.3
2019 European election	26 May 2019	–	34.6 7	23.9 5	17.2 3	14.1 3	8.4 1	0.8 0	1.0 0	9.7

Projected turnout:

According to the OGM poll for the "Kurier" newspaper (May 7-8, 2024), a total of 66% of those surveyed said they are "certain" to vote. This would represent an increase of more than 6% compared to the 2019 election, which had 59.8% turnout. It would also be the highest turnout since the first EU parliament election in Austria in 1996, when turnout was 67.7%.