Mammoth EU vote winds up with all eyes on eurosceptics

Europeans today voted in EU parliamentary elections, the final day of a massive process expected to give eurosceptic parties a boost.
Voters in 21 EU states -- including France, Germany and Italy -- headed to the polls to elect 600 of 751 European parliamentarians, ending a four-day vote that began in Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday.
Greece, Romania and Lithuania got the voting underway at 9.30 AM but no results will be announced in any of the countries until polls close in the last country, Italy, at 2.30 AM.
The voting takes place amid anger over belt-tightening measures imposed by Brussels to correct the euro crisis, as well as concern over the chaos unravelling on Europe's eastern border in Ukraine, where a presidential vote was also taking place.

"These elections are a chance for new people, for young people, to get involved," and for Greece's austerity measures "to be abolished, or otherwise, we'll die of hunger," said Eftstathia Baharaki, 62.
If opinion polls prove correct, the eurosceptic parties could treble their presence to around 100 seats in the next five-year EU assembly.

In Denmark, France and Italy, anti-EU parties are poised to take first or second place, shaking up national politics and setting up a battle against Brussels from the inside.
In Britain, the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage -- a party without a single seat in the national parliament -- surged Thursday in local council polls held in parallel with the EU vote, rocking the establishment.

Turnout too will be watched to see if it reflects growing popular exasperation with the EU, dropping even further from the record low of 43 per cent in 2009.
Early indications suggested slightly higher turnout, notably in France, Germany and Portugal but in Slovakia, the worst performer in 2009, it looked appeared set to be even lower at just 13 per cent.
"There is a legitimacy problem," Carnegie Europe director Jan Techau told AFP.
The polls suggest mainstream parties, the centre-right conservatives and centre-left socialists, will hold about 60 per cent of the seats in the next parliament compared with the current 70 per cent.

Traditionally they have worked together much of the time and should be able to continue to do so, analysts said.
Faced by mounting hostility to the Brussels bureaucracy, EU political leaders have worked hard to correct a so-called "democratic deficit".