Voters in remaining EU states head to the polls

BRUSSELS - The European election enters its final day Sunday (7 June) as voters in 19 member states head to the polls, including in the biggest states Germany and France, amid fears of a low turnout and a strong showing for far-right parties.

Eight member states - the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia – have already voted while the Italians started voting on Saturday and will continue today.

Under EU rules the results will only start becoming clear on Sunday evening after 10 pm CET.

Some 375 million citizens across the EU are entitled to vote and much is made of the fact that it is the biggest exercise of transnational democracy in the world. In contrast to the first direct elections to the EU assembly in 1979, the parliament now has real clout in EU law-making. This power is set to increase if the EU's latest treaty comes into force.

But voters continue to view the EU vote as a no-consequence stick with which to beat incumbent parties.

This has particularly been the case this time round as citizens lash out at governments for their handling of the global economic crisis.

Exit polls in Ireland suggest the governing Fianna Fail has taken a beating in the polls while in Latvia, which has also been hit hard by the recession, smaller left wing parties made major gains.

In Britain, meanwhile, the Labour government took a drubbing in the local elections held in England on same day as the European election. This pattern is expected to be similar for the EU vote, with the opposition Conservative and the eurosceptic UK Independent Party among the main beneficiaries.

Analysts have suggested that a combination of a low turnout and voter anger could see far-right or far-left parties make major gains in the polls.

The Netherlands, which has bucked EU rules by already releasing near-complete results, has lent weight to this theory.

Results from the Dutch vote show that the far-right and anti-Islamic Party for Freedom, headed by MP Geert Wilders, came second with 17 percent of the vote, and will have four seats in the assembly.

But it remains unclear whether the far-right vote will be great enough across the bloc as a whole to actually have a disruptive impact on the European Parliament.

Turnout is the other major question. The most recent opinion survey commissioned by the EU assembly shows the downward voter turnout trend of every previous EU election may be bucked this week.

It reached a low of 45.3 percent in 2004 but the parliament poll suggests it may rise to 49 percent this time round.

However, individual countries show a mixed result so far.

Turnout in Italy after the first day of voting on Saturday was of 17.8 percent, a drop from 20.5 in 2004.

In Romania, the turnout results after the first three hours of voting were slightly better than during the last EU elections, held in November 2007. (4 percent compared to 3.8 percent in 2007).

In France 14.81 percent had voted by midday compared to 13.62 percent in 2004

The tiny Mediterranean island of Malta is likely to come in with the highest turnout. The Times of Malta reports that turnout for Saturday's vote was 78.81 percent.

Eyes will also be on Slovakia which in 2004 recorded the lowest showing of any member state in an EU election ever at 17 percent.