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European Parliament elections begin
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-04 20:59

European Parliament elections begin
A woman prepares to vote at a polling station in the remote village of Biggin, northern England, June 4, 2009. [Agencies]
BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament elections began on Thursday in Britain and the Netherlands, with 736 European Union (EU) lawmakers to be elected but turnout expected to be low.

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About 10,000 polling stations opened in Britain at 7:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) and will close at 10:00 p.m. (2100 GMT), while the Netherlands started even earlier at 6:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) and would finish voting at 8:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Thursday.

More than 375 million EU citizens are eligible to vote in the election of 736 members in the European Parliament for the next five years. The number each EU member state has varies according to their population, which means the biggest country Germany would have 99 members while Malta, the smallest, would have only five.

Britain and the Netherlands are the two countries that took the lead in the elections, which would last until Sunday.

Irish people, who still have to decide later this year the fate of the EU Lisbon Treaty designed to reform the 27-nation bloc, would vote on Friday. In Italy and the Czech Republic the voting process will continue from Friday to Sunday.

Elections will begin Saturday in Latvia, Cyprus, Malta, and Slovakia, while in all the remaining 18 EU members the elections will take place on Sunday.

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