Salvini says populists will control 150 EU seats
The leader of Italy's right-wing League Party, Matteo Salvini, calculates that populist and nationalist parties will control at least 150 seats in the new 751-seat European Parliament.
Votes were still coming in early Monday, but Salvini told RAI state television that his League, Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France and Nigel Farage's Brexit party in Britain together should control 90 seats. He says other populist parties in the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group could bring that number to 150.
Salvini says that doesn't count other like-minded parties, like Hungarian President Viktor Orban's Fidesz, which belongs to another conservative parliamentary group. Salvini says the election sends a strong signal to traditional parties that "the European people are asking for a different Europe."
