International Desk

After just a few days of result announcement for the world’s biggest elections in India, the second largest vote casting exercise started Thursday across 27 countries of the European Union.

About 373 million voters would cast their ballots in the elections, also the world’s biggest multi-country polls, till Sunday to pick 720 members of European Parliament (MEP) for a five-year tenure.

Final results are not expected until Monday. The power of hard-right is likely to be on full display in the results significantly affecting the bloc’s internal and global policies.

The vote comes at a pivotal moment for the EU, which is grappling with issues ranging from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to immigration and climate change. Polls have predicted big gains for hard-right parties in a number of countries, which could have long-term implications for the continent.

As such, this year’s election issues mark a sharp turnaround from those in previous editions when voters primarily focused on the cost of living, farm policies, climate change and migration.

Notably, the elections are managed at a national level with adherence to individual national policies. Thus, they are not all carried out in the same exact way. However, they must all employ a proportional representation system –where the number of lawmakers elected to the parliament directly correlates to the percentage of people who voted for them.

Once all the votes have been counted, each national political party will be assigned a number of members of European Parliament (MEPs) relative to their vote share. It is up to the member states to determine how this is assigned.

Once they have been appointed to the parliament, MEPs can then join a European political party, which allows them to sit in a group in the parliament. These parties and groupings are multinational and based on a loose set of shared beliefs. The bigger the grouping, the more influence it has in parliament.

There are seven main groupings, ranging from the extremes of the far right to the far left.

The two dominant groupings are the center-right conservative European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

While these two parties are still expected to be the largest after the elections, all eyes are on the other main right-wing groups, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the hard-right, populist Identity and Democracy (ID).

Palestine: A new issue

As the continent prepared for this week’s critical votes, the Palestine topic has surged to the forefront.

“Personally, I perceive it [Palestine] as a crucial factor that allows voters to see the true colours of the parties they support,” said Maruska, who has Slovene-Italian roots and will be voting in this year’s EU elections for the first time.

“I will be voting from Germany, and there is only one party who is vocal about the cause – MeRA25,” she added, referring to the leftist, pro-Palestine European political group.

For Thomas Maddens, a filmmaker and activist based in Belgium, Palestine is a subject of colonial dynamics that he said politicians in Europe should address in light of the continent’s history.

“For me, if you can’t get it right on Palestine, I’m not going to vote for you,” he told Al Jazeera.

Marc Botenga of Belgium’s leftist Workers’ Party and an EU lawmaker campaigning to hold his seat, said: “While travelling around the country to campaign, I’ve seen people talking about classic election topics like purchasing power, climate change and migration. But this year, discussions over Palestine has been a central topic.”

He added: “I think EU citizens have seen how establishment politicians really like to speak about Ukraine and say how much the bloc really needs to support Ukraine, give them weapons and money to win the war. But then with Palestine, there has been a degree of hypocrisy and double standards. People want this to end. So how politicians address Palestine will influence the European elections.”

Johannes Fehr, one of the leading German candidates for MeRA25, said many Europeans want to be on the right side of history while voting this year.

“Many people want their EU leaders to stop supporting the genocide in Gaza as well as the possibility to vote for a truly international option that represents not only people from one country but from everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We are a pro-Palestine party, and in Germany, we have seen a lot of pushback from basically all the major parties, starting from the Palestine Congress to our Free Palestine posters that are constantly torn down and even burned. But we are not giving up.”

The war in Gaza and tensions in the West Bank have seen millions of people in the EU and globally protesting for months for a ceasefire.

In Brussels, even diplomats and staff members of EU institutions have taken to the streets.