Burson Launches 2025 EU Influence Index One Year on from 2024 European Parliament Elections

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - 25 September 2025 - Burson, the global communications agency purpose-built to create value for clients through reputation, today launched the 2025 edition of its EU Influence Index. The Index provides an objective and data-driven analysis of the ability of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to shape legislation ("Parliamentary Influence") and drive public debate ("Public Influence").

2025 EU Influence Index rankings

• For Parliamentary Influence, Veronika Vrecionová (CZ - EPP) ranked first, Javier Zarzalejos (ES - S&D) is second and Tilly Metz (LU - Greens) is third.
• For Public Influence, Jordan Bardella (FR - PfE) ranked first, Rima Hassan (FR - Left - GUE/NGL) is second and Raphaël Glucksmann (FR - S&D) is third.

Full details of Burson's 2025 EU Influence Index are available on our Burson EU Influence Index website.

The 2025 Burson EU Influence Index is published just over one year after the 2024 European Parliament elections, in which mainstream pro-EU political parties retained their overall majority, while political parties on the extremes, in particular on the right, also gained ground.

The 2025 Burson EU Influence Index shows:

• The European Parliament is increasingly divided. While MEPs from mainstream pro-EU political parties rank highly on parliamentary influence and drive the policy agenda, MEPs from extreme political parties rank highly on public influence and dominate public discourse.
• MEPs with high public influence tend to rank lower on parliamentary influence, showing no obvious correlation between driving policy outcomes and public discourse.
• Pro-EU mainstream political parties have maintained their hold over the legislative agenda, with the EPP, S&D, Renew and the Greens dominating the top of the parliamentary influence rankings.
• MEPs from the EPP and S&D parties collectively account for 60% of the top 50 MEPs with the most parliamentary influence. The S&D, in particular, outperforms its share of seats by +11 percentage points. In contrast, no MEPs from extreme right or left political parties rank in the top 50 for parliamentary influence.
• Six of the top ten MEPs with the most public influence also played prominent roles in national elections in 2024, suggesting a correlation between national politics and public influence.

Andrew Cecil, CEO of Burson Brussels, said "Following the 2024 European Parliament elections, two distinct groups of MEPs are emerging: one focused on shaping EU policy outcomes, and one focused on using the European Parliament as a platform to drive public discourse at both the European and national levels."

The Burson Influence Index methodology

The Burson Influence Index is an objective and data-driven analysis of the ability of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to shape legislation and drive the public debate. We achieve this by analysing two key dimensions of influence: Parliamentary Influence and Public Influence.

Parliamentary influence measures an MEP's ability to influence legislation, shape the political agenda and gain positions of power. This includes data points such as retaining official positions within a party or the Parliament, and making speeches.

Public influence measures an MEP's public visibility and ability to shape the public debate and is evaluated across three main categories of influence: social media, news media and online search. The period covered by the 2025 Index is June 2024 to July 2025.

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About Burson

Burson is the global leader in communications purpose-built to create value for its clients through reputation. With highly specialized teams, industry-leading technologies and innovative creativity, Burson contributes to redefine the reputation of brands and companies as a competitive advantage, enabling them to lead both the present and in the future. Burson operates under WPP (NYSE: WPP), a creative transformation company.

For more information, visit: www.bursonglobal.com.

If you would like to discuss the EU Influence Index in more detail, please contact [email protected]