Addressing activists who had gathered in Brussels for election night, the PES Common Candidate said:
“Let me make this promise to you tonight, because you deserve a promise from me because you have done so much in this campaign, the pride I feel for you tonight is huge. The gratitude I feel for you tonight is huge. And on that basis, I want to say: I pledge to you I will fight to find a progressive majority in the European Parliament that will really take steps to fight climate change, social injustice, and make big corporations pay tax.”
Frans Timmermans’s national party – the PvdA – won the election in the Netherlands, doubling its share of the vote and increasing its MEPs from three to six. Overall, the socialists remain the second largest party in the European Parliament.
The PES Common Candidate also addressed media that had gathered in the hemicycle to watch the results.