Voters across 20 European Union countries have started picking the bloc’s next parliament amid concern that a likely shift to the political right will undermine the ability of the world’s biggest trading bloc to take decisions as war rages in Ukraine and anti-migrant sentiment mounts.
The election began on Thursday in the Netherlands and in other countries on Friday and Saturday, but the bulk of EU votes are being cast on Sunday, with France, Germany, Poland and Spain opening the polls and Italy holding a second day of voting to elect 720 members of the European Parliament.
Seats in the assembly are allocated based on population, ranging from six in Malta and in Luxembourg to 96 in Germany.
The election will shape how the European bloc confronts challenges including a hostile Russia, increased industrial rivalry with China and the United States, climate change and immigration.
An unofficial exit poll on Thursday suggested that Geert Wilders’s anti-migrant hard right party should make important gains in the Netherlands, even though a coalition of pro-European parties has probably pushed it into second place.
Since the last EU election in 2019, populist or far-right parties now lead governments in three nations — Hungary, Slovakia and Italy — and are part of the ruling coalition in others, including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.
The elections come at a testing time for voter confidence in a bloc of some 450 million people. Over the last five years, the EU has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic slump and an energy crisis fueled by the war in Ukraine – the biggest land conflict in Europe since World War II.
