Czechs, Irish vote in EU poll tipped to boost eurosceptics

The Czech Republic and Ireland voted today in European Parliament elections expected to boost eurosceptic parties despite a surprise setback for Dutch populists on the polls' first day.
With 26 million people out of work across the European Union, eurosceptic and far-right parties have picked up massive support on anti-immigration and anti-EU platforms.
The latest opinion polls suggest they could secure almost 100 seats in the new parliament, trebling their number in the 751-seat assembly, and may top the polls in Britain, France and Italy.
Friday results showed that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage surged in local council elections, giving the anti-EU and anti-immigration group hope for a similar breakthrough in the European Parliament polls.

But the Netherlands' eurosceptic and fiercely anti-Islamic populist Geert Wilders stumbled yesterday, on the first day of voting on the continent.
His Party for Freedom scored just 12.2 per cent of the vote yesterday, down from 17 per cent in 2009, exit polls showed.

Meanwhile in France, a survey forecast a Sunday landslide for the anti-immigration, populist National Front, with 23.5 percent of the vote.
Some 400 million Europeans are eligible to vote in the polls, spread over four days in the EU's 28 member states, and which come as the bloc struggles for relevance in the aftermath of the eurozone crisis and grapples with the chaos on its eastern borders.

Russia's annexation of Crimea has spooked many eastern European countries that were dominated by the Soviet Union for much of the 20th century.
Having anchored their security in the EU and NATO following the fall of the Iron Curtain, most of eastern Europe is expected to back pro-EU parties in the polls.
"The crisis in Ukraine may... Push some voters to back mainstream parties and eschew those of a eurosceptic bent," Vit Benes, from the Prague-based Institute of International Relations, told AFP.
Fuelling that trend is the fact that "eurosceptic parties like the National Front in France or Britain's UKIP are pro-Putin," he said, referring to Russia's president.

Only Hungary, which votes Sunday, has a strong eurosceptic party -- the far-right Jobbik.
Dubbed "neo-Nazi" by the European Jewish Congress and shunned even by the far-right National Front and Austria's Freedom party for its extremism, Jobbik has emerged as the second strongest political force in Hungary, with polls showing support of around 17 per cent.