EuroNews (27 May 2019)

Voters from the 28 member states of the European Union have cast their ballot in what is the second biggest democratic exercise in the world.

Ahead of the elections, pollsters had projected right-wing, anti-EU populists, including France's National Rally, Italy's League party, Germany's AfD and the Finns Party would score big, diminishing the influence of the European People's Party (EPP) and Socialist & Democrats (S&D) groupings.

They had also predicted a good showing for Green parties across the bloc as climate change protests brought the issue to the fore of the campaign.

Austria

The ruling People's Party, led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, comes in first with 34.5%, according to an exit poll. It is followed by the Social Democrats with 23.5% and the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) with 17.5%.

The latter's score is believed to have been hit by the so-called Ibiza scandal which resulted in party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigning as vice-chancellor last week after a secret video appeared to show him trying to trade public contracts for party donations from a woman he thought was the niece of a Russian oligarch.

See full results.

Austria scandal: What we know about the video which brought down the government

Belgium

Belgium isn’t holding just one election on Sunday, but three: federal, regional and European.

In the latter, will the greens capitalise on a strong showing in local elections to improve on their 6.6% vote share in 2014?

Like many other European countries, Belgium also has a far-right party, Vlaams Belang, which is forecast to get up to 14.8% of the vote in Flanders.

Nationally, the party got 4.2% five years ago.

Bulgaria

Even though voting is compulsory in Bulgaria, in 2014 voter turnout was only 35.84 %

Bulgaria's vote is expected to be split between the centre-right GERB party and the country's socialist coalition party.

The youngest current European parliament member is Bulgarian Andrey Novakov, who is 30.

See full results.

Croatia

The conservative Democratic Union (HDZ), which rules the country in a coalition, and the Social Democratic Party are in the lead with 23.43% and 18.38% of the vote respectively, according to an exit poll. However, turnout was very poor, dropping 10% since 2014, to just 32%.

See full results.

Cyprus

Polls on Sunday suggested the ruling DISY party — an EPP member — came in first with 32.5% of the vote, broadly on par with 2014 results.

Niyazi Kizilyurek, from the communist AKEL party — currently polling in second place — has become the first Turkish Cypriot to be elected as an MEP.

The country is divided in The country is divided between Greek Cypriots and minority Turkish Cypriots, but over 80,000 Turkish Cypriots are reportedly eligible to vote in EU elections.

See full results.

Czech Republic

The ruling centrist ANO party increase its number of MEPs from 4 to 6, official results show. The second biggest delegation from the country is another liberal formation, the Civic Democratic Party, which doubles its MEPs to 4.

The anti-establishment, anti-corruption Czech Pirate party came in third with three MEPs, tied with the conservative STAN TOP coalition.

Denmark

Preliminary results put the Social Democrats in the lead with 23.4%, ahead of the centre-right Venstre party — ruling the country in a coalition — which scored 21.9% of the vote. 

The Socialist party is in third (13.1%) while The Red-Green Alliance looks set to win its first ever seat at the European Parliament with 11%, while the People's Movement Against the EU got 3.9%. 

See full results.

Danes are scheduled to return to the poll on June 5 for the country's general election.

Estonia

The key question in Estonia is whether anti-EU, far-right party Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (EKRE) will perform as well in these European elections as it did in March’s national poll.

That election saw EKRE come third, winning it a place in the ruling coalition.

The party won 4% of the vote in 2014’s European poll; this time around it is forecast to get as much as 17%.

Finland

The Scandinavian country was the first to officially release its results which saw the centre-right National Coalition Party claiming the top spot, with 20.8% of the vote, slightly below its 23.2% from 2014.

The Green League secured the second place with 16.0%, ahead of the Social Democrats (14.6%) and the populist Finns Party, which makes it in fourth position with 13.8%.

France

An exit poll put the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen movement in the lead, just slightly ahead of French president Emmanuel Macron's La Republique En Marche! movement (LREM).

The National Rally, then-known as the Front National, also won the EU election in 2014 while Macron's movement did not exist then.

The Green party surprised to clinch the third place with 12.8% of the vote.

See full results.

Germany

An exit poll confirmed projections made ahead of the elections that predicted a surge of support for the Green Party, which clinched the second place with 21.8% of the vote — double its 2014 result.

The ruling CDU/CSU alliance has come in first with a reported 28% of the vote while the anti-migrant and anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) is fourth with 10.5%.

See full results.

Greece

The main opposition party, the conservative New Democracy movement, beat the ruling left-wing Syriza formation with 36% and 27% of the vote respectively, an exit poll has found.

With national elections due in October, Greeks have been concentrating on domestic issues ahead of the EU poll.

The country’s economic situation and the name change agreement with North Macedonia have taken precedence over European issues.

See full results.

Hungary

The National Election Office has announced that the ruling right-wing Fidesz party has won with 52.14% of the vote. The Democratic Coalition came in second with 16.26% with the liberal Momentum movement in third with 9.92%. 

Fidesz's victory came despite repeated clashes with Brussels over rule of law and migration. The party has also been suspended from the centre-right European People’s Party grouping in the parliament.

Ireland

Ireland went to the ballot box on Friday and the Pro-EU Fine Gael party of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was expected to be the biggest party.

Meanwhile, the Green party had a strong showing and is likely to become the fourth largest party in Ireland.

See full results.

Italy

The far-right League party, the minority partner in the country's ruling coalition, is projected to win the highest share of the vote, according to an exit poll. The Five Star Movement, the majority partner in the coalition, is reported to score the third place, behind the Democratic Party.

Latvia

Latvians headed to the polls on Saturday to vote for the 8 seats they have in the European parliament.

New Unity — the party aligned with the EPP — is expected to come in first, according to Latvia national media LETA. The right-wing National Alliance party is one to watch as results are confirmed from Saturday's vote.

Turnout in the 2019 elections was 33.03%, close to the 30.24% voter turnout in 2014.

Lithuania

While voting to fill 11 seats in the European Parliament, Lithuania is also holding the second round of its presidential election.

Centre-right rivals Gitanas Nausėda and Ingrida Šimonytė will face off Sunday in the runoff as neither candidate received a majority during the first round of voting on May 12.

Luxembourg

The liberal Democratic Party and the conservative Christian Social People's Party will both send two MEPs to the European Parliament having scored 21.44 and 21.1% respectively. 

The Green Party came in third with 18.91% of the vote, official results show 

Malta

Government corruption will be a large topic in Malta during the EU elections as the two major parties have both accused the other of corruption.

Still, mainstream parties are expected to top the election. Even though Malta has two far-right Eurosceptic parties, it's unlikely that they will gain seats in the European Parliament.

See full results.

Poland

The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) is estimated by an exit poll to have increased its share by some 10 percentage points to 42.4%.

The European Coalition, led by European Council President Donald Tusk and comprised of his Civic Platform and a group of leftist and rural politicians, came in second with 39.1%.

But turnout, although at a record high for EU elections in the country, still only stood at 43%.

The EU elections kicked off a series of polls in the country: a parliamentary one follows in the autumn before a presidential vote next year.

See full results.

Portugal

The Socialist Party is projected by an exit poll to be in the lead, with about 30% of the vote, followed by a coalition of centre-right parties including the Social Democrats and the People's Party.

The Left Bloc is reported to be third while the green party, PAN, looks set to win its first seat in the European Parliament.

See full results.

Romania

An exit poll found the ruling Social Democrats (PSD) — which has clashed with Brussels over anti-corruption and rule of law reforms — and the pro-EU National Liberal Party (PNL) tied in first place with 25.8% of the vote each.

For the PSD, this would represent a 12 percentage point drop in support since 2014.

The A 2020 USR PLUS alliance, which campaigned on anti-corruption and green issues, came in third with 23.9% of the vote.

See full results.

PNL and other pro-EU parties may be helped by the fact there is a referendum being held at the same time on PSD's controversial reforms.

Slovakia

The progressive Slovakia/Together coalition has won the EU election with 20.1% of the vote, official results show. The social-democratic SMER party finished second with 15.7% ahead of the far-right People's Party with 12.1%

See full results.

Read more: How EU elections have seen far-right rise in Slovakian politics

Slovenia

The liberal Democratic Party has retained its top spot with a score pretty much identical to the one in 2014 (26.48%), according to preliminary results released by the State Election Commission with more than 98% of the votes counted.

The centre-left Social Democrats came in second, more than doubling its results from 2014 with 18.57%. The list led by the country's Prime Minister, meanwhile, came in third with 15.62%.

Spain

Several exit polls have put the ruling Socialists in the lead, followed by the centre-right People's Party and Cuidadanos. Vox was projected to be in fifth position, with a share of the vote less important than the 10.3% it got at last month's general election.

One curiosity of Spain’s EU poll is whether ex-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont — currently exiled in Belgium — will get elected.

And, if he does, whether he’ll be able to take up his seat, as Euronews looked at in this article.

READ MORE: Independence puzzle for European Parliament

Sweden

An exit poll has put the ruling Social Democrats in the lead with 25% of the vote. Their coalition partner, the Green Party, actually looks set to lose some five percentage points from 2014 and finish fourth, tied with the Centre Party, with 10% each.

This is quite a disappointing score for the Green Party in Greta Thunberg's home country. The teen activist kick-started a global protest last year calling on lawmakers to take more decisive action to tackle the climate emergency.

The far-right Sweden Democrats nearly doubled their score with a projected 17%, compared to 9.67% in 2014.

The Netherlands

The anti-EU, far-right Freedom Party (PVV), which was projected to do fairly well, actually saw its support plummet to 4.1% from 13.2% in 2014, according to an exit poll.

Instead, the pro-EU left-wing Labour party is projected to be the big winner with 18.1%, followed by the governing (in a coalition) People's Party for Freedom and Democracy with 15%.

See full results.

United Kingdom

With nearly a third of the vote counted, Nigel Farage's Brexit Party is in the lead with 31.5%. Trailing behind in second position are the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats (19.4%) while the main opposition Labour Party is in third with 14.8%. The ruling Conservative has so far scored only 8.3% of the vote. 

Article contributors:Alice Tidey;Thomas Siemienski; Rafa Cereceda; Rita Palfi; Patrik Ohberg; Pantelis Petrakis; Lillo Montalto Monella; Lauren Chadwick; and Carolin Küter.