Socialists and Liberals re-elect their leaders by acclamation, keeping the status quo

Spain's Iratxe García Pérez and France's Valérie Hayer will respectively preside over the socialist and liberal groups.

Transcript

00:00After the European elections earlier this month, the centre-left Renew Europe party

00:04fell from third to fourth largest political force in the European Parliament.

00:10Since then, negotiations have been carried out to keep the group operational, making

00:14agreements with other national parties with similar ideologies.

00:18Renew Europe now have just 74 members in Parliament, that's a drop of almost 30 seats compared

00:23to the previous period.

00:26It was overtaken by the European Conservatives and Reformists, a hard-right group which now

00:30boasts 84 members.

00:33The group's chair, French MEP Valérie Ayer, managed to win re-election.

00:37Despite the party's poor results in France, she says the mergers are crucial for its continued

00:42success.

00:45We are an attractive group and we will continue to grow.

00:49And second, our political position makes that we are indispensable.

00:55So there is no majority without us.

00:57EPP needs us to form a majority, SND needs us to form a majority, and we will continue

01:03to be at the core of this central and pro-European majority.

01:10The elections were won overall by the centre-right European People's Party, who got 189 seats.

01:16The centre-left Socialist and Democrats party came in second with 136.

01:20The Spanish MEP, Irapse Garcia, was also re-elected in the centre-left on Tuesday.

01:25A member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the coalition is key to re-elect Ursula

01:30von der Leyen for a second term as President of the European Commission.

01:34That nomination is being decided by the leaders of the 27 countries in a summit to be held

01:38this Thursday.

01:39After that, von der Leyen will have to be confirmed by the European Parliament.

01:43We will agree on Thursday to see if the Council ratifies the agreement.

01:48In this case, we will start to work here, and of course, for us, it's important to insist

01:53that we want a deal, and at the same time, we want to negotiate policies.

01:59This cannot be a blank check.

02:01The formal constitution of the European Parliament will take place during the first plenary session

02:05in Strasbourg, starting on the 16th of July.