It was one of those rare occasions when all European leaders all agreed on something.
After the European Parliament elections of May 2014, the then French president, Francoise Hollande - whose party was beaten by the far right National Front - said the EU had become "remote" and had to change.
The then British prime minister, David Cameron, said people were "deeply disillusioned" with the Union and that the message was "received and understood".
Those sentiments were echoed by Angela Merkel in Germany, Matteo Renzi in Italy and others across the union.
Five years on, and from this vantage point, that election result does not look like the radical shake-up or "earthquake" it was interpreted as at the time.
Despite the rise in radical, eurosceptic parties from both the left and right at the time, the centre still held.
The centre-left and centre-right coalesced to form a voting majority.
A report earlier this week shows that this "grand coalition" will, for the first time, no longer hold the majority of MEPs after May's elections.
Drawing on a survey by YouGov for the European Council for Foreign Relations - a pro-European think-tank - it predicts eurosceptic parties or candidates will get 35% of the seats.
This would be an increase of around 5% on the last election, and shows that the many headlines about a populist wave sweeping the EU might be overstating things. But such a result would be more significant because of where it places the eurosceptic cohort. That is, as the second largest group in the Parliament.
That could make a big difference to how it conducts its work when it reconvenes for its next term in July.
Few people here pay much attention to the groupings of the European Parliament. Their names are unfamiliar to an average Irish voter and are usually long and wordy or meaningless acronyms.
But how these groups organise themselves and work together or against each other could determine a lot of the EU’s policies in the years ahead.
The report 'Kingmakers of the Mainstream', whose co-authors include Michael Marsh of Trinity College and Kevin Cunningham of TU Dublin predicts a parliament made up of three main groups: The left bloc, the right bloc and the anti-European bloc.
"Regardless of whether the UK participates in the election, the three blocs will each constitute roughly one third of the parliament," it states.
The European People's Party - or EPP - which includes Fine Gael - got around 29% of the vote in 2014 and is predicted to get 24% this time, according to the report.
The largest group, it currently has 217 seats and would have 189 out of 705 without the UK and 182 out of 751 with the UK. This makes up most of what the report describes as the right bloc which, combined, would get 32% of seats.
The next biggest group, the S&D or Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats - which include Labour parties - got 25% of the vote in 2014 and is predicted to get 19% next month. It currently has 187 seats.
As the British Labour Party is part of this group, whether or not the UK takes part in these elections will make a big difference to its seat numbers.
Assuming it does, this group is predicted to take 140 out of 751 seats. If the UK is not it, it would take 123 out of 705. This makes up most of what this report describes as the left bloc which, combined would get 34% of seats.
The anti-European Group which is made up of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy will get 20% of seats, according to the report. Added to the European Conservatives and Reformists, the Nordic Green left, this "anti-European" group would get 35% of seats.
If the UK participates in the election, it is likely that the left bloc will be marginally larger than the right bloc. If the UK does not participate, the right bloc will remain the largest group in the European Parliament, followed by anti-European parties, the report predicts.
All of this fragmentation means that Alde (which includes Fianna Fáil) or the Greens (which both fall within a centre group) would be needed to make up any voting majority above 50%. These are the likely "kingmakers" according to the report.
The outcome will, in some ways, mirror "new politics" in the Dáil where political parties have to forge alliances with each other or a number of others to get their agenda through.
As the report concludes: "The European Parliament will be significantly different after these elections."
