European Parliament Elections Underway in Netherlands and UK

Over the next four days, citizens of the 28 European Union member states will elect 751 deputies to serve in the European Parliament for the next five years.

Polls opened in the Netherlands on Thursday morning, marking the start of the European elections. The UK also joined the vote, with polling stations opening in Great Britain at 6:00 GMT. The Dutch will elect 26 MEPs, while people in the United Kingdom will elect 73 legislators.

Voting results will only be published after the closure of all polling stations in all EU member states on Sunday, 26 May.

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According to a report by the Parliament's Public Opinion Monitoring Unit, the eurosceptics are expected to grow their numbers, with the Italian Lega party securing about 26 seats, becoming the second biggest party in the European Parliament after the German CDU/CSU governing bloc.

In the meantime, surveys in the United Kingdom also showed that Nigel Farage's recently created Brexit Party is expected to gain about 37 percent of the votes, beating the Labour Party and the governing Conservatives.

Great Britain was initially set to leave the bloc before the vote, on 29 March, however, the government failed to secure support for its divorce plan, prompting the country to hold the elections.