Last minute 9J candidates, votes and results today

This Sunday, the first part of the election day passed normally and without incident in the countries of the European Union, where more than 370 million Europeans are called to vote to choose the 720 representatives of the European Parliament.

This Sunday, when the polls close in Italy at 11pm local time (9pm GMT), the four-day European elections (6 to 9 June) will end, marking the second highest voter turnout in the world. Those are in India.

Spain is one of the most populous member states in the European Union and therefore one of the countries with the most seats in the European Parliament (61), after Germany (96 seats), France (81) and Italy (76). Poland is fifth with 53 seats.

These five countries together will appoint more than half of the members of the European Parliament: 375 of the 720 seats in the hemicycle. Those with the lowest population are the least populated: Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg with just six seats.

European elections are governed by the national rules of each of the 27 Member States. Thus, in addition to the dates of appointment with the voting, other differences lie in the compulsory nature of voting (Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece and Luxembourg) or the age, although in the majority it is from the age of 18, in Greece it is possible at the age of 17 and in Austria, Malta, Belgium and Germany at the age of 16.

According to parliamentary sources, the novelty of the under-age vote will make it possible to mobilise around 2 million young voters under the age of 16 for the first time in 2024.

For this election night the European Parliament’s chamber has been transformed into “the largest and most complete press room in the world”, where more than a thousand international journalists will follow the seat-by-seat projections, the conference of the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups and the speeches of the party leaders at the end of the night.

Germany

In Germany, the current President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a second term, went to cast her vote at her respective electoral college in the federal state of Lower Saxony on Sunday morning.

Von der Leyen arrived shortly after 10:00 (08:00) with her husband Heiko and made no statement. Three interventions are planned throughout the afternoon/evening.

Around 60.9 million Germans are called to vote in these European elections, of which around 5.1 million will be able to vote for the first time.

According to the latest polls, the main opposition party in the German lower house Bundestag, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is ahead in voting intentions with 30% support, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is ahead with between 14% and 20%.

France

In France, more than 49 million citizens have been called to vote to elect 81 MEPs.

An hour after voting opened for the European elections in metropolitan France, Marine Le Pen, whose far-right party could achieve a historic victory this Sunday, cast her vote in her electoral fiefdom in the Pas-de-Calais department.

Italy

In Italy, a quarter of voters cast their ballots for the European elections from the time voting opened on Saturday afternoon until this Sunday afternoon, in an election where analysts indicated there could be a historic peak in abstentions, around 50%.

By 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT), over 25% of citizens entitled to vote had cast their vote, with a total of over 51.2 million people called to the polls.

This electoral event is a political thermometer for the far-right Giorgia Meloni, candidate and government favourite to win the European elections.

Spain

In Spain, one of the first politicians to vote was the president of the government, socialist Pedro Sánchez, who arrived at the polling station accompanied by his wife, Begoña Gómez.

More than 38 million Spaniards are called this Sunday to elect 61 MEPs from 34 electoral lists, two more than the list presented five years ago.

poland

Ultimately, only 11.66% of Poles eligible to vote went to the polls after midday in Poland, lower than the 14.4% recorded in the last European Parliament elections in 2019.

The campaign leading up to these elections has been dominated by concerns over Russian interference in Poland through the manipulation of social networks and the dissemination of propaganda.