From Vilnius to Lisbon, tens of millions of voters cast ballots today to renew the European Parliament, where the expected rise of the far-right could determine the political course of the next five years at a critical time for the European Union.

The vote to elect 720 MEPs comes amid concerns over the war in Ukraine, which was launched by Russia, and major challenges for Europe vis-à-vis China and the United States.

Citizens in 21 of the 27 EU countries, including Germany, France and Spain, are voting on the final day of the election marathon that began Thursday in the Netherlands. In total, more than 360 million citizens were called to the polls.

The results are expected in the evening. In Austria, the far-right FPÖ party received 27% of the vote and emerged as the biggest political force in the country, according to exit polls released late in the afternoon.

“The European Union will only succeed if it is united and stays united. I think it is important to be on the side of peace and democracy, especially in this world where everyone is trying to isolate themselves from others,” commented 52-year-old German voter Tanya Wright.

In Toulouse, in southwestern France, 76-year-old Martine Dorian considers it “necessary to vote”: “If tomorrow there is no more Europe, there will be no more France,” she said.

Increased participation in France

“The challenge is the size”, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen underlined, two days after the attack she received in Copenhagen, citing mainly “security and protection with war in Europe”, “climate change”, “the pressure on Europe’s borders’ and the influence of ‘tech giants’.

Although opinion polls predict a far-right push in several countries, the current “grand coalition” of right, socialists, liberals, which is forging compromises in the European Parliament, is expected to retain the majority. However, his room for maneuver may be reduced, forcing him to find additional forces and begin intensive negotiations in the coming weeks.

The Dutch, the first to vote on Thursday, confirmed a surge for Haert Wilders’ far-right party, despite the party expected to be reduced to second place behind the coalition of Social Democrats and environmentalists, according to estimates.

The president of the European Commission, German Ursula von der Leyen, who is running for a second five-year term, voted in the morning in Burgdorf in Lower Saxony, together with her husband.

“I hope that a majority for peace will emerge from these elections,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after casting his vote in Budapest. Remaining highly critical of Brussels, the nationalist leader is also stepping up his attacks on NATO, accusing it of dragging the Alliance countries into a “global conflagration”.

In the neighboring countries of Russia waging war against Ukraine, security is a very big concern. “I want the strengthening of security, or even the deployment of a European force on our soil,” Andrzej Zmiejewski, a doctor, 51, said after casting his vote in Warsaw.

Mobilizing the electorate is one of the major challenges of the elections.

In Spain, turnout was down at 2:00 p.m. to 28.01%, compared to 34.74% in the last election in 2019. In France, on the other hand, turnout was up, reaching 45.26% at 5:00 p.m. compared to 43.29% in 2019. In this country where 49 million voters went to the polls to elect 81 MEPs, President Emmanuel Macron called for a barrier to be erected on the far right, believing that the danger is that Europe could find itself “blocked”. .

The latest polls give a big lead to National Alarm under Jordan Bardela, with more than 30% of the vote, well ahead of “Renaissance”, the party of the French president, followed by the social democratic left led by Raphael Glicksman.

In Germany, the far-right rallied behind the AfD and took second place in the vote, despite the latest scandals involving the party’s head of the EU ballot.

Germany’s CDU-CSU conservatives are far ahead, taking 30.5% of the vote, according to a poll, with Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Solz’s SPD party suffering a rout.

“Progress or Regression”

In Italy, where voting began on Saturday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Adelphia Italia (FDI) party could send 22 MEPs to the European Parliament, compared to six it currently has. Meloni, who was put in charge of the party’s European ballot in this election, reiterated that she wants to “defend the borders from irregular immigration, protect the real economy, fight unfair competition”.

Spain’s prime minister, socialist Pedro Sanchez, encouraged voters to go to the polls. “In this vote it is decided whether the future we are building together for Europe and Spain is a future of progress or a future of regression,” he said.

MEPs will have as their first task to confirm or overturn the choices of the leaders of the member countries for the presidency of the Commission.

The 27, which will meet at the end of June at the summit in Brussels, may again choose the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen, and the vote in Parliament will be held a priori in mid-July.

In 2019, when von der Leyen was appointed to this post to everyone’s surprise, Parliament gave her a vote of confidence by a very narrow majority (nine votes) more than she needed to be elected.