Voting for the European Parliament entered its second day today, with polls opening in Ireland and the Czech Republic, according to dpa. First indications suggested that turnout could be higher than expected in the two countries, where voters are equally keen to voice their discontent over the European Union's worst economic crisis in decades. In Ireland, where polling stations were due to close in the evening, turnout had reached 26 per cent in some areas by midday. Average turnout in the capital, Dublin, had reached nearly 16 per cent at 2 pm (1500 GMT). Voting was also reported to be brisk at Cork City Hall, in the south constituency. Voting was also underway in the Czech Republic, where polling stations opened in the afternoon and where they were due to close on Saturday afternoon. Election committee officials said about one tenth of voters had turned up in the first three hours since the election started, the Czech news agency CTK reported. Pollsters predict that some 40 per cent of Czechs may cast their ballot, as opposed to 28 per cent during the previous round of European Parliament voting five years ago. Turnout for the EU as a whole was not expected to exceed 50 per cent. Friday's round of voting took place a day after citizens cast their ballots early in Britain and in the Netherlands, where the far-right Dutch Freedom Party shook the country's political establishment by becoming the second-strongest national faction after the ruling Christian Democrats. While not commenting on the outcome of the vote, European Commission officials voiced their displeasure Friday at the country's decision to publish its election results before voting is completed across the EU - a move that while complying with Dutch election procedures, violates the bloc's rules. Spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said the commission planned to ask the Dutch government for "clarifications" and raised the possibility of action being taken against the country. "The events that took place in the Netherlands yesterday would seem not to comply with the spirit of European elections," Altafaj said. The spokesman argued that the simultaneous publication of the results in all 27 member states on Sunday evening, when the last polling stations will have closed, is necessary to ensure that the elections are seen as European, rather than national. Moreover, it is important to avoid "influencing voters in those countries which have not yet voted," Altafaj said. Britain, by contrast, has agreed to stick by its EU obligations by publishing its results along with the rest of the EU, on Sunday evening. In Ireland, which has caused headaches in Brussels by stalling the entry into force of the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, analysts were keeping a special eye out for the performance of Declan Ganley, the man who spearheaded Ireland's victorious no campaign against the treaty in a June 2008 referendum. But support for Ganley's eurosceptic Libertas party was estimated at just 9 per cent, according to the latest poll commissioned by The Irish Times daily. Analysts say last year's wave of anti-Lisbon feelings has abated in Ireland, largely as a result of the global recession, which has hit the former Celtic Tiger particularly hard. Domestically, the European Parliament election is being dubbed a "verdict" on the ruling Fianna Fail party, whose popularity has sunk to an historic low of 20 per cent. In the Czech Republic, the election was expected to turn into a duel between the country's two largest rival parties - the right-wing Civic Democrats of former premier Mirek Topolanek, and the leftist Social Democrats, who managed to unseat Topolanek's government midway through the country's stint as president of the European Union. Topolanek, who hopes to form what he calls a "eurorealist" faction in the European Parliament with British and Polish conservatives, reluctantly pushed the Lisbon Treaty through the Czech parliament. But he has since run his election campaign on an anti-Brussels platform, telling a recent rally in Poland that the EU treaty was dead. A crop of new anti-Lisbon parties, including a Czech branch of Libertas, whose candidates include followers of eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus, are also vying for seats in the European Parliament. The Czech Republic will send 22 lawmakers to Brussels and Strasbourg, while Ireland will have 12 seats in the 736-member European Parliament. The remaining 23 EU member states open their polls over the weekend.
