London: Voters in Brexit-bound Britain cast ballots on Thursday at the start of 28-nation EU elections in which eurosceptic, anti-immigration forces have vowed to create a political earthquake that will shake the Brussels establishment.
Britain joined the Netherlands in kicking off four days of voting across the continent. The Brexit crisis mirrored deep divisions across the continent. Rising anti-establishment forces across the continent are bidding to make significant gains, in a threat to closer EU integration.
More than 400 million European voters are eligible to elect 751 Members of the European Parliament, with the first results announced late on Sunday once voting in all 28 member states has been completed.
These are the ninth European parliament elections since they began in 1979 and voter turnout has dropped each time, hitting 43 per cent in 2014.
Around the continent, national leaders are scrambling to mobilise their supporters to resist the populist surge, with opinion polls showing nationalist parties in the lead in France, Italy and Hungary, among others.
Pro-European leaders fear a good showing for the eurosceptics will disrupt Brussels decision-making, threatening reform efforts at closer integration.
In the Netherlands, flamboyant populist Thierry Baudet, a classics-quoting climate sceptic, is on course to win the same number of seats as Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals.
Matteo Salvini of Italy’s anti-immigrant League and Marine Le Pen of France’s far-right National Rally (RN) want their Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group to become the third largest in Brussels. The League has topped opinion polls in Italy.
Meanwhile Le Pen wants to strike a blow to Emmanuel Macron’s faltering French presidency by overtaking his centrist, pro-European party Republic on the Move.
Polls give her RN party a slight edge, with around 23 per cent support.
“Everything has changed,” Le Pen said. “In the space of a few months, a whole range of political forces have risen up in spectacular fashion.”
However, the strong showing by eurosceptics is not expected to sweep the whole bloc, with voters from Spain to Ireland and the former Soviet Baltic states indicating solid backing for the EU.
In Germany, surveys show Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party — a heavyweight in the EU-wide centre-right EPP group — in first place, with the Greens second.
The latest Eurobarometer survey commissioned by the European Parliament found 61 per cent of respondents calling their country’s EU membership a good thing — the highest level since the early 1990s.
The polls will open on Friday in the Czech Republic and Ireland, and on Saturday in Latvia, Malta and Slovakia.
But most countries will be voting on Sunday, with the results expected overnight into Monday.
Nine different projections this month gave the EPP the most seats ahead of the main centre-left PES bloc and then the ALDE liberals.
— AFP
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