Winning over 30% of seats, Eurosceptic parties and anti-establishment groups now control their largest bloc of votes since the first EU Parliamentary election in 1979.

Meanwhile, the long-ruling "grand coalition" of center-right and center-left parties (the EPP, a collection of center right parties, and S&D, a collection of center-left parties) lost its combined majority, though both coalition groups retained a plurality of seats (180, or 24%, for EPP, and 146, or 19.4%, for S&D).

Though pro-European groups together maintain a clear majority, this broad grouping has become increasingly fragmented, which could complicate policy making, while a strong showing from eurosceptics will mount a serious challenge to the status quo, according to a group of analysts from Deutsche Bank.