Millions head to the polls in final day of voting in European elections

Credit: AP

Tens of millions of people across the European Union are voting on Sunday in EU the parliamentary elections that is expected to shift the bloc to the right and redirect its future.

The war in Ukraine, migration, and the impact of climate policy on farmers are some of the issues weighing on voters’ minds as they cast ballots to elect 720 members of the European Parliament.

Surveys suggest that mainstream and pro-European parties will retain their majority in parliament, but they will lose seats to hard right parties like those led by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France.

That would make it harder for Europe to pass legislation and could at times paralyze decision-making in the world’s biggest trading bloc.

“I do hope that we will manage to avoid a shift to the right and that Europe will somehow remain united,” voter Laura Simon said in Berlin.

EU lawmakers have a say in issues from financial rules to climate and agriculture policy. T

hey approve the EU budget, which bankrolls priorities including infrastructure projects, farm subsidies and aid delivered to Ukraine. And they hold a veto over the appointment of the powerful EU commission.

A biker prepares to cast a ballot inside a school room which is used as a voting station during the European Elections in Athens. Credit: AP

This 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 biggest land conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

But political campaigning often focuses on issues of concern in individual countries rather than on broader European interests.

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 ruling coalitions in others including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.

“Right is good,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist and anti-migrant government, told reporters after casting his ballot.

“To go right is always good. Go right!”

After the election comes a period of horse-trading, as political parties reconsider in their places in the continent-wide political alliances that run the European legislature.

Unofficial estimates are due to trickle in from 1615 GMT.

Official results of the polls, which are held every five years, will be begin to be published after the last polling stations in the 27 EU nations close in Italy a 9pm GMT, but a clear picture of what the new assembly might look like will only emerge clear on Monday.

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