Dutch Far-right in Big EU Poll Gains

"This is fantastic, a great day for the people who crave another Netherlands, another Europe," Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Friday, June 5.

Exit polls showed that the far-right party took 16.9 percent of the ballot and four seats in the first-ever campaign.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian Democrats (CDA) dropped nearly five percent to 20 percent and lost two of its seven European parliament seats.

The CDA's governing coalition partner, the labour PvdA, was the biggest loser -- taking 12.2 percent compared with 23.6 percent in 2004 and down four seats to three, according to 92.1 percent of votes counted.

The third party in the government coalition, the small ChristenUnie, was at 6.9 percent of the vote, up from 5.9 percent in 2004, and projected to take two seats.

The opposition centrist and pro-European D66 was at 11.3 percent, up from 4.25 percent in 2004. The environmental Groenlinks garnered 8.9 percent, up from 7.4 and the far-left SP was steady at 7.1 percent.

The Netherlands, with nearly 13 million registered voters, and Britain were the first European countries Thursday to vote in parliament polls being held across the bloc until Sunday.

Some 380 million voters in 27 EU member-states are eligible to vote to elect the 736 members of parliament.

Across Europe, far-right parties are hoping to win at least 15 seats in the new parliament.

The European Parliament has two state-of-the-art premises in Brussels and Strasbourg.

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