German Greens leap in EU vote as left bleeds support

An exit poll in the European Union's biggest member state showed the Greens on 22%, Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their conservative allies on 28%, down eight percentage points from 2014, and the SPD slumping nearly 12 points to 15.5%.

The poll for public broadcaster ARD bore out predictions of a "green wave" that could push climate and environmental issues up the agenda in Brussels and bring the Greens into a possible four-party, pro-EU coalition at European level. On a night when German political attention was focused on the CDU's narrow defeat of Merkel's national coalition partner the SPD in the small city-state of Bremen, a left-wing bastion,the insurgent far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) raised its share of the EU vote by 3.4% to 10.5%.

Pollsters had been predicting a surge for nationalists across the continent that will pressure traditional parties which back continued integration of the Union. Germany has been less exposed to the trend than others, and a clearer indication of how the far-right has done will come when French exit polls are published after voting ends there.

When the final ballot is cast in Italy, results and projections from Italy, and from Britain, which voted on May 23, will complete the picture in the EU's big four countries. Anti-EU parties have been forecast to top the polls in both Italy and Britain, and could also do in France.

A first European Parliament estimate of how its 751 seats are likely to be allocated will come shortly after 1800 GMT, when polls in 12 of the 28 states, including France and Spain, will have closed.

(REUTERS)