Eurosceptics Gain Ground in European Parliament

“The inevitability of European integration ends tonight,” UKIP leader Nigel Farage said. Photo: EPA/BGNES

Unlike Bulgaria, where the nationalist parties suffered a crushing defeat in the European elections, throughout the rest of the EU they are gaining ground. 

The French National Front and UK Independence Party both performed strongly, while the three big centrist blocs in parliament all lost seats.

This prompted French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to call the results “political earthquake”. 

The provisional results, based on exit polls show that Marine Le Pen's party, the National Front, wins the elections with 25% of the votes and will send 25 MPs to the European Parliament, which is a dramatic increase from the three seats they won in 2009. 

"The people have spoken loud and clear," Marine Le Pen told cheering supporters at the party headquarters in Paris, quoted by BBC. "They no longer want to be led by those outside our borders, by EU commissioners and technocrats who are unelected. They want to be protected from globalisation and take back the reins of their destiny."

In the UK, quite expectedly, the victory went to the eurosceptic anti-immigrant party UKIP, with 27.5% of the votes. “The inevitability of European integration ends tonight,” UKIP leader Nigel Farage said. He called the UKIP victory “an earthquake because never before in the history of British politics has a party seen to be an insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election.” 

In Denmark The far-right Danish People's party (DPP) triumphed in the European elections, winning Denmark's biggest share of the vote. The DPP, which had campaigned to reclaim border controls and curb benefits to other EU citizens living in Denmark, won nearly 27% of the vote and doubled its number of MEPs from two to four.

In Germany the eurosceptics “Alternative for Germany” also gained some ground - won 7% of the votes and six seats in the European Parliament. 

According to preliminary reports, the Greek far-right party Golden Dawn won 10% of the votes and will most likely send two MEPs. 

In spite the gains of the eurosceptics, however, the three main pro-European parties – the European People's Party (EPP), the Party of the European Socialists (PES) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) – will keep their influence in the European Parliament. 

According to preliminary projections, the EPP will retain the majority in the 751-seat European Parliament with 211 seats, compared to 193 for the Socialists and  Democrats. Early projections showed that protest parties could win around 129 seats. 

The overall voter turnout across the EU was 43.1% - a little more than in the elections in 2009.

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