European Union faces key test in parliamentary vote
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Greek left-wing opposition leader Alexis Tsipras a candidate for the European Union's parliament during his speech in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday, May 21, 2014.
BRUSSELS, Belgium From Portugal to Finland, voters of 21 nations on Sunday were deciding the makeup of the next European Parliament, a sprawling exercise in democracy that will help determine the European Unions future leaders and course.
Opinion polls were predicting that candidates who want to slash the EUs powers or even abolish it could scoop up as many as a third of the seats which would be the strongest showing ever of disillusionment with the bloc.
When official returns are announced Sunday night, they could herald changes in EU policy in areas ranging from border control and immigration to a new trade and investment agreement being negotiated with the U.S.
Europeans in seven other nations have already voted. Unofficial exit polls reported a surge in support for Britains anti-EU UKIP party. In the Netherlands, however, the right-wing Euroskeptic Party for Freedom dropped from second to fourth place, the pollsters reported.
The 751-seat parliament is the only popularly elected body in the 28-nation European Union. Never before have so many candidates been bent on radically curtailing the EUs powers, ending their countrys membership or shutting down the union entirely.
We believe the best people to govern Britain are the British people themselves. We believe in running our own country, being proud of our democracy, controlling our borders, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told The Associated Press in an interview. We want our country back. Its been sold out.
However, many Europeans remain attached to the EU, associating it with greater economic opportunity and prosperity. One of them is Spanish grain and olive farmer Fidel del Olmo.
If Europe had not existed, Spanish agriculture would have disappeared, del Olmo said, citing the EU subsidies he and other farmers receive.
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European Union faces key test in parliamentary vote