European Parliament

By Paul Taylor

Draped down the side of the European Commission's headquarters, a 13-storey-tall banner urged citizens to vote in the European Parliament elections, proclaiming in English, French and Dutch: "This time it's different."

Well maybe, but maybe not.

The honorary President of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Ion Iliescu, said that it is very important for Romanians to show up and vote on Sunday, so that the country can consolidate its status in the European Parliament as a full member of the European Union.

The polling stations across Bulgaria opened at 6 AM on Sunday morning for the elections for European Parliament. 

The 11 685 sections in Bulgaria and abroad are open till 7 PM, but the law provides for an extension of one hour, if there are people, willing to vote at the locations.

Greece will have the largest number of candidates standing in Sunday’s European Parliament elections in relation to the size of its electorate, it was revealed on Friday.

A total of five parties will make it into the European Parliament, with center-right opposition GERB to be first in the vote, a survey by polling agency Alpha Research argues.

The survey exploring electoral attitudes, made upon an order by Dnevnik.bg, shows that GERB has a clear lead on the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) in the contest for Bulgaria's 17 MEP seats.

Millions of people are voting on the first day of the European elections 2014 in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, Thursday.

Voting will take place in the EU's other 27 member states over the next four days, with 751 MEPs in total to be chosen.

By Anna Nicolaou

In an entirely unscientific poll, 10 young Europeans were recently asked if they could identify any of the top three candidates in this week's European Parliament elections. Only one of them could.

Sxity-two percent of the EU voters are “not at all” or “not much” interested in the European Parliament elections in May, shows a survey of Ipsos-MORI.

It was conducted in April. A total of 8 833 people were polled in Belgium, Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

The new European Parliament will have a group of right-wing nationalists around Marine Le Pen of the French National Front and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom.

These are the results of the latest forecast which is part of the PollWatch2014 project funded by the European Parliament.

If elections for European Parliament were held today, in Bulgaria the Bulgarian  Socialist Party (BSP) would get 19.2% of votes, shows a poll of Sova Harris agency. 

According to the survey, quoted by Bulgaria’s Presa daily, the opposition center-right GERB would get 17% of the votes and the ethnic Turkish party DPS would get 6.2%.