Voting continues in European elections after far-right gains

By Stefan Bos

Polls opened early in Ireland as the country started elections for 14 members of the 720-seat European Parliament. The nation’s longtime-time figureheads of the EU’s Left group, Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, faced an uphill battle to get reelected.

The Czech Republic opened the polls in the afternoon, as it is holding a two-day election. It elects 21 European legislators as seats are allocated according to each EU member country’s population.

Opinion polls suggest that far-right and rightwing parties will make gains and perhaps become the dominant force in the European Parliament.

Yet in the Netherlands, which kicked off the four-day European elections, the anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) was in a tight race with an alliance of social democrats and greens led by Frans Timmermans, a former EU climate commissioner.

The final NOS Ipsos exit poll indicated that the PVV could win seven seats, up from just one in the last Parliament.

The center-left alliance would win eight of 31 European Parliament seats up for grabs in the Netherlands. However, PVV leader Geert Wilders said there is a clear trend among the Dutch and European electorate. "We want to toughen up the asylum rules and policies. We want to be in charge of our own rulings again from the Dutch parliament and the Dutch government. And Frans Timmermans wants exactly the opposite. He wants to open the borders more...," Wilders told reporters.      

EU sentiments

Analysts said this showed that once-pro-EU sentiments in one of the bloc’s founding nations have given way to concerns over whether the Netherlands needs a more powerful EU.

Similar divisions have reverberated in campaigns from Finland to Portugal and from Belgium to Hungary amid concerns about a growing influx of migrants fleeing war, persecution, and poverty into the EU.

Besides migration, other issues have also dominated the political agenda in Europe, explained Tobias Schminke of the EuropeElects polling company. "In 2019, climate change was really important according to Europe barometer data. This time, it's the cost of living, peace, and the war in Ukraine that are more in the voters' minds," he said.

Nearly 400 million people are eligible to vote in the world’s second-largest democratic voting exercise after India’s recent elections.

Most of the EU’s 27 nations will vote on Sunday, after which the official election results will be announced.

The results are expected to impact the European Union’s future when the continent deals with the consequences of the ongoing war in Ukraine, which also hopes to join the EU one day.