Il Popolo della libertà obtained around 35% of the Italian vote. The result falls short of the expected 40% which had been proclaimed as the leading Italian political force's target, and represents a fall in comparison to the Italian elections in 2008, when PDL got 37.3% of the vote.
Despite this relative setback, Berlusconi's party holds a comfortable majority in Italy and widened the gap with the main opposition party, the Partito Democratico (PD), which got just 26% of the Italian vote.
Compared with the last European elections in 2004, Berlusconi's centre-right coalition essentially maintained the same number of votes, but its share of MEPs in Strasbourg is set to grow significantly.
This is because many votes had to be redistributed as some parties failed to reach the 4% threshold needed under Italian law to enter the European Parliament. This was particularly the case for leftist parties, which together garnered around 7% of the vote but split ahead of the election.
As a consequence, Italian representation in the centre-right EPP grouping in the European Parliament is set to increase from 24 to 34 MEPs, making it the largest national delegation after Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic party (CDU). The number includes 29 MEPs from the PDL and another five from the Unione di Centro (UDC), a Christian conservative party which opposes Berlusconi at national level but tends to partner with him at local and European level.
As the second biggest delegation in the EPP, the PDL's strong showing increases the likelihood that the next president of the European Parliament will be a member of Berlusconi's party.
Hans-Gert Pöttering, a German Christian Democrat, has already occupied the Parliament's top job for the past two years, making it highly unlikely that another German will succeed him.
The name of Mario Mauro, a vice-president in the previous Parliament, has already been put forward for the top seat (EurActiv 26/03/09). The veteran Italian MEP is close to Vatican circles and should thus find support among the Christian UDC.
Italy has never had a president of the Parliament since the first elections to the assembly in 1979, which increases Mauro's chances, but Berlusconi's reputation beyond the Alps could still stand in his way regarding the Parliament's top seat.
