European Parliament election, 1989

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15–18 June 1989

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Members elected →

All 518 seats to the European Parliament
260 seats needed for a majority

Turnout

58.5%

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Jean-Pierre Cot	Egon Klepsch	Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
Party	SOC	EPP	ELDR
Leader's seat	France	Germany	France
Last election	130	110	31
Seats won	180*	121*	49*
Seat change	50	11	18

* The number of seats was increased from 434 to 518 – so this is a nominal figure

Majority Leader before election

SOC

Majority Leader-Elect

Jean-Pierre Cot
SOC

SOC

Jean-Pierre Cot
SOC

The 1989 European Parliamentary Election was a European election held across the 12 European Community member states in June 1989. It was third European election but the first time that Spain and Portugal voted at the same time as the other members (they joined in 1986). Overall turnout dropped to 59%

The Socialists held their third consecutive victory, rising to 180 seats (166 pre-election), with the People's Party managing to win only 8 extra seats. However, the European Democrats had a massive loss of 32 of the 66 seats, knocking them from third to sixth largest party. The liberals, who had already risen one place with the byelections in Spain and Portugal earlier, gained an extra seat, holding their new-found third place with both the Rainbow and Communist groups splitting post-election.

These were the first elections Portugal and Spain took part in with the other states. Spain was allocated 60 seats and Portugal was allocated 24; the number of seats for the other states remained the same, raising the total number of seats from 434 to 518.

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