The aim of the paper is to examine the contemporary configuration of Europe's left-wing party families, namely social democracy, the Greens and the radical left. The newest edition (2024) of Chapel Hill Expert Survey datasets will be utilised for such purposes. Expert surveys constitute one widely used method for capturing party positions in multidimensional ideological space. Albeit imperfect, they offer a valuable comparative snapshot across countries and party systems. The analysis will focus on parties' spatial locations on the economic left-right and GAL-TAN dimensions, incorporating their recent vote-share performance. The evaluation of their ideological distances will be established by comparing the distances between parties' spatial coordinates on those axes. Particular attention is paid to the magnitude and direction of these distances, the extent to which the party families diverge or converge, and the consistency of these dynamics across different regions of Europe. On occasions, such as left-wing parties forming a government coalition with liberal and right-wing parties, those distances will be as well compared in relation to their coalition partners.

The analysis further explores how spatial proximity relates to coalition formation: specifically, whether Social Democratic and Green parties tend to be closer to their Radical Left counterparts or to the parties with which they ultimately enter government coalitions. These patterns will shed light on the strategic calculations underlying coalition building, the differentiation within the broader left, and the regional characteristics contributing to party competition.