We now know what the new EU Parliament will look like

Committee chairmanships are being doled out based on the strength of the political groups - with one big far-right surprise.

There is a rush of activity this week in the European Parliaments offices in Brussels, as they prepare for the first plenary session of the new term next week at their ceremonial headquarters in Strasbourg. We’ve already seen some dramatic developments, including the surprise formation of a new Orban-Le Pen far-right group that had blown past Giorgia Meloni’s ECR to become the third-biggest group in the European Parliament.

Last night the group leaders met to partition out the Parliament’s top jobs - most importantly the committee chairmanships - based on the size of each group. Technically the deadline for group formations was the 4th of July, and though Le Pen’s MEPs were trying to push this forward, the center-right EPP blocked it. So the chair positions reflect the parliament’s composition before the launch of Le Pen and Orban’s new Patriots for Europe group yesterday (more on that below). That means chairmanships are on the basis of Meloni’s ECR being in third place, and Macron’s Renew group of Liberals being in fourth place. Here’s who wants what: