CNN
 — 

The projected gains for the hard right in the European parliamentary elections may seem modest in terms of pure numbers, but they are significant.

The results are a reflection of how the political center of Europe has shifted to the right over the past five years and represent a major challenge to the pro-Europe mainstream officials who dominate the institutions of the European Union.

The advances chalked up by far-right parties may not be unexpected, and they don’t pose an existential crisis for the EU. But they show how the Euroskeptic right could, in the coming years, tighten its grip on the direction of the union.

Over the next 24 hours, the parties of the center – projected to remain the largest bloc in the European Parliament – will likely talk of a “grand coalition” to counter the rise of the far right. And while the far right is on course to make large gains, the center parties remain ahead.

The center-right European People’s Party is currently projected to win 181 seats in the European Parliament, making it the largest group. The center-left Socialists and Democrats are projected to finish second with 135. That is a significant drop from 2019 for both parties, who finished with 216 and 185 seats respectively five years ago, but still, they remain the two biggest parties.

The centrist liberal Renew Europe’s projected 82 seats along with the Green’s 53 means that, on paper, the mainstream center still looks like the most powerful force in the European Parliament.

When you compare that to the harder-right parties, ECR and ID, who are projected to win 71 and 62 seats respectively, the center’s dominance looks clear.

The course of European politics, however, is not necessarily set inside the European Parliament.

Of the 27 EU member states, 13 heads of government currently belong to European parties on the right. A new government is due to form in the Netherlands, which could be led by a member of ID. There are other European leaders who are not a member of any European party, but are broadly sympathetic to ideas from the right.

French President Emmanuel Macron has responded to the projected crushing loss to his far-right rival Marine Le Pen by dissolving parliament and calling elections later this month.

Le Pen has already forced Macron to move a long way to the right in France, with his government taking on increasingly anti-immigrant and anti-Islam rhetoric. In 2027, France will hold a presidential election which could sweep Le Pen to power.

These provisional results do not show a dramatic or sudden shift to the right, but something more nuanced and gradual – that the center ground of European politics has been shifting rightward over a number of years.

The most visible example of this has been the emergence of Giorgia Meloni as a major player in EU politics. In 2022, she was elected as prime minister of Italy. Her domestic party, Brothers of Italy, is the most rightwing to be elected to government there since that of Benito Mussolini, the wartime fascist leader.

Initially, Brussels officials feared that Meloni would be a firebrand out to destroy the EU. In office, she has been an ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and has worked cooperatively with her counterparts on issues like Ukraine.

She has used the influence she’s gained to shift the EU’s policy positions on issues that matter to her: most notably, migration.

The high point of Euroskepticism for most casual observers was probably the Brexit vote in 2016. That was the result of years of domestic politics shifting in the UK, the center right shifting to fend off the hard right, ultimately leading to that rupture.

The difference between what happened in the UK and what is happening now is that Euroskeptics no longer want to leave the EU: they want to take it over.

Placing these provisional results in that context as we look ahead to more elections across the continent in the coming months and years, that takeover of the EU’s center looks increasingly more realistic.