Minute-by-minute coverage - 07/06/2009

The results as they come in

Dutch party-poopers may have leaked their results early, but the other 26 EU members are yet to declare their winners and losers. Follow exit polls and results live as they come in from across the EU.

00:24am - United Kingdom: The far-right British National Party has won its first EU parliament seat. That pretty much sums up the night: an electoral drubbing for most ruling parties, with the notable exception of Germany's CDU-CSU, France's UMP and the People of Freedom of Silvio Berlusconi, with conservatives strengthening their grip on the European Parliament, the Party of European Socialists (PSE) taking a mighty blow, and far-right, eurosceptic parties bursting into the 736-member assembly.

00:09am - Greece: The scandal-plagued conservatives have slumped to their first defeat in five years, according to provisional results. The Socialist opposition took 36.3 percent of the vote, against New Democracy's 33.5%, amid a record-low turnout.

11:56pm - Italy: Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party has secured 39% of votes, against the centre-left Democratic Party's 27.5% and the eurosceptic Northern League's 9.5%, according to the latest projections.

11:28pm - Slovakia: The ruling left-wing party has added two MEPs to the three it already had, while the ultra-nationalist SNS party known for its inflammatory rhetoric against the Roma and Hungarians won its first-ever seat with 5.55% of votes. At a dismal 19.64%, turnout was still relatively high by Slovakian standards (17% in 2004).

11:18pm - Latvia: The right-wing Civic Union party, which joined the government in March of this year, has won 24.32 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. The Harmony Centre party, representing Latvia's large Russian-speaking population, came second with 19.53%. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis' New Era party won 6.66% of the vote, while the nationalist Union of the Fatherland and Freedom took 7.46%.

11:10pm - Lithuania: With 82% of ballots counted, the conservatives of Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius claim 26% of the vote and 4 of the country's 12 seats. The social democrats follow with 18.99% of votes.

11:05pm - Ireland: Declan Ganley, a leading opponent of the European Union's reform treaty, looks unlikely to win a seat in the European Parliament for Ireland's North West constituency, early returns show.

11:02pm - EU-wide: The Party of European Socialists (PSE) has been beaten into second in the European Parliament, with its current tally of 216 seats set to shrink to between 155 and 165. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) looks set to win between 78 and 84 seats , while the Greens' group is heading for a 52- to 56-seat tally, well above its current total of 43.

10:52pm - EU-wide: The centre-right EPP-ED group is set to win between 263 and 276 seats out of 736 in the EU parliament, according to first estimates, thereby confirming its status as the largest group.

10:50pm - Spain: The conservative Popular Party bagged 42.03% of the vote, ahead of the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero on 38.6%, according to provisional results released by the European Parliament. Spain sends 50 MEPs to Strasburg.

10:45pm - Hungary: The centre-right Fidesz party has stormed to victory with 56.37% of the vote, as the ruling Socialists saw their vote halved from 2004 to a mere 17.37%, official results show. But the shock comes in the shape of far-right Jobbik party's stunning third place with 14.74% of the vote and three seats in the EU parliament.

10:34pm - Germany: Angela Merkel's CDU-CSU have won the election with 38% of the vote, well ahead of coalition partners SPD (20.8%), according to results released by the European Parliament. The EU vote was widely viewed as a dress rehearsal ahead of September's general election.

10:10pm - Italy: The latest scandals plaguing Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi don't seem to have troubled his party, which took between 39 and 43 percent of the vote, against 27%-31% for the centre-left opposition, according to exit polls.

10:08pm - Poland: The ruling liberal Civic Platform (PO) has secured a whopping 45.3% of the vote, according to estimates released by TVN24. The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of the Kaczynski brothers came second with 29.5% of votes, beating a left-wing coalition into third with 12%. The liberal's coalition partner, the People's Party (PO), took 7.9%.

10:06pm - France: "Our result (8.4% of the vote, according to OpinionWay) is disappointing (...). I take my share of responsibility," centrist MoDem leader François Bayrou told France 2 TV. French voters don't seem to have bought into his strategy to cast himself as the only true opponent to President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

9:48pm - France: The ruling UMP party looks set to secure 30 seats in the European Parliament ahead of the Socialist Party and the Greens with 14 seats each, according to an OpinionWay estimate. The centrist MoDem party trails behind with 6 seats, ahead of the Left Front with 4, the National Front with 3 and Libertas with 1.

9:40pm - Romania: The interior ministry has reported 35 cases of electoral fraud, including voters who attempted to cast several ballots by travelling from village to village on a bus.

9:27pm - Finland: With 80% of ballots counted, the prime minister's centrist party and its conservative ally both have between 21% and 21.9% of the vote, slightly below their 2004 tally. Turnout reached 40.3%, down from 41.4% five years ago.

9:22pm - Portugal: The Socialist Party (PS) of Prime Minister Jose Socrates is neck-and-neck with the right-wing Social Democratic Party (PSD), according to the first TV estimates. The PS is thought to have scooped between 28% and 33% of the vote, against the PSD's 29%-34%, in an election dominated by voter apathy (turnout around 39%).

9:15pm - Finland: The nationalist and eurosceptic True Finns have seen their share of votes multiply 20-fold from 2004 to 10%, laying claim to one of Finland's 13 seats in the EU parliament, according to preliminary results.

9:11pm - France: The Greens, led by historic May '68 leader Dany "the Red", have moved into second place in the Paris region with 19.7% of the vote, ahead of the Socialists' 14%, according to a TNS-Sofres estimate. If confirmed, this could go down as one of the night's huge upsets.

9:03pm - EU-wide: Turnout across the 27-member EU has slumped to a record low of 43.01 percent, according to a first official estimate.

9pm - Spain: Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero's Socialists (40.5%) are trailing the right-wing opposition Popular Party (43%), according to first exit polls.

8:43pm - Denmark: Mildly better news for the left in Denmark, where exit polls give the opposition Social Democrats (21.8%) a narrow lead over the ruling Liberals (20.8%) and their Conservative allies (12.4%). The opposition Socialists appear to have won 16.1% of votes, just ahead of the far-right Danish People's Party (14.4%), whose leader made headlines this week by claiming that Eastern European countries were "not as clever as us". Meanwhile, the eurosceptic Popular Movement is thought to have won 6.9% of the vote.

8:37pm - France: Buoyed by the UMP party's election win, French Prime Minister François Fillon said the time for "national unity to face the economic crisis" had come.

8:19pm - Romania: The left-wing social democrats (PSD) and the right-wing liberal-democrats (PDL), both members of Romania's ruling coalition, appear to be tied with between 30 and 31 percent of the vote, according to Insomar and CCSB polling agencies. The liberals (PNL) trail in third with 16% of votes, ahead of the Democratic Union of Magyars (UDMR) with 9-10%. The far right Greater Romania Party appears to have won 7% of the vote, a score that would give it 2 seats in the European Parliament.

8:14pm - France: "This is clearly a disappointment, and one that must encourage us to come up with a credible alternative to the policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy," said a downcast Socialist Party spokesman, Benoît Hamon.

8:07pm - France: "This is the first time in 30 years that the French have put the ruling party ahead in European elections," says the French government's visibly content spokesperson, Luc Chatel.

8pm - France: First estimates give the ruling UMP party a strong lead with 28.3% of the vote, well ahead of the battered Socialists (17.5%), according to TNS/Sofres/Logica and Opinion Way-Fiducial polling agencies. Meanwhile, the Greens (14.8%) appear to have moved ahead of the centrist MoDem party (8.7%) in a bitter race for third. The new Left Front (6.3-6.7%) appears to have won its own battle with the anti-capitalist NPA (5-5.2%), while the far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen is credited with approximately 6.5% of votes. Turnout remained low as little more than 40% of voters bothered to cast their ballots, according to the polling agencies.

6:55pm - Germany: Estimates released by German state TV channels ARD and ZDF give Angela Merkel's CDU-CSU between 38 and 38.3 percent of the vote, well ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD), who have slumped to just above 21%. The conservatives may have dealt their grand coalition partners a mighty blow, but their total is still below the 44.5% registered in 2004. Exit polls say the Liberals (FDP) have jumped up 4% to 10.8% of the vote, while the Greens scored 11.6% and the left-wing Die Linke took 7.5%.

6:50pm - Bulgaria: The right-wing Gerb party of Sofia's mayor, Boïko Borissov, is ahead of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev's socialists, according to the first exit polls.

6:15pm - Austria: The conservative ÖVP party is in the lead with 29.7% of the vote, ahead of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) on 23.9%, according to Austrian TV. The Eurosceptic party of Hans-Peter Martin appears to be in third with 17.8% of votes, up from 13.98% in 2004.

6pm - Germany: Exit polls give Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party a clear lead over rivals.

5pm - France: Turnout has slowed down after a relatively brisk start. Estimates now put it at 33.18%, down from 33.24% in 2004.

4pm - Romania: Voters are hardly rushing to the polls in Romania, where turnout was a mere 14.95% at 4pm, down from the 19.61% registered at the same time in 2007, when voters were first called to elect their representatives at the European Parliament.

3pm - Bulgaria: Police have detained several people in the region of Blagoevgrad, in the country's south-west. Those arrested are suspected of attempting to bribe voters in seven villages in the area. Last week, police dismantled two networks of lenders who had accepted to erase the debt of Roma communities as long as they voted for a certain party. Read more about Bulgaria's mafia politics.

2pm - Poland: Turnout in Poland has reached 6.65%, slightly above the 5.94% registered at this stage in 2004. A mere 20.28% of Poles bothered to vote in the European election five years ago.

2pm - Spain: Turnout at this stage is hovering just above 24%, roughly the same as in 2004.

2pm - Portugal: The heat may be to blame for lacklustre voting in Portugal, where only 11.84% of voters have turned up at the polls so far, down from 14.18% in 2004.

2pm - Italy: The country's interior ministry says turnout has reached 30.7%, down from 34.1% in 2004. The figure may look comparatively high, but voting began on Saturday in Italy.