Counting begins across EU states

Turnout appears to be up in several of EU’s biggest countries in the elections for the European parliament – the official results won’t start to be released for several hours when polls across the continent have closed.

But if exit polls are to be believed the overall picture is not terribly coherent – in some areas socialists and greens appear to have done well but so too have Eurosceptics and far right parties.

Our Europe editor Matt Frei reports from Brussels.