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00:00 A shout of relief after the exit polls. The Green-left Labour list in the Netherlands
00:07 is projected to send eight MEPs to Brussels. Geert Wilders' party for freedom and democracy
00:14 is expected to win seven seats.
00:16 Pro-European parties in the Netherlands did very well in this election, which sends a
00:21 clear signal to the rest of Europe there is no necessity to work with the radical right,
00:28 the assumption that the radical right would sweep this election is not materialised in
00:34 the Netherlands.
00:34 Though they campaigned together, these two parties belong to different European families.
00:41 Labour is part of the Socialists and Democrats and the Green-left is part of the Greens.
00:46 Geert Wilders did not celebrate. During the party's single campaign event, Wilders was
00:51 mobbed by supporters in the press.
00:53 The next coming days are crucial to the future of Europe. Will it be with more open borders
01:00 and immigration or will it be a lot tougher and with more, as I said, not an expansion
01:05 of the European Union but returning to the capitals of the legislative powers and this
01:11 is something that we are aiming for.
01:13 The radical right party had always advocated for an exit but changed course this year.
01:18 Wilders now says he wants to change the European Union from within and hopes to join the Identity
01:24 and Democracy group.
01:26 Despite the campaign having little visibility in both the streets and the media, turnout
01:32 was 47%, the highest since 1989.
01:36 Voters were mostly concerned about migration, health care and the economy. The Netherlands
01:42 will send 31 MEPs to Brussels. The final result will only be known on Sunday evening.
01:49 French President Emmanuel Macron has said France will provide Ukraine with its Mirage
01:59 combat aircraft to help the country's defence against Russia's military offensive.
02:05 He spoke after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined world leaders in France to
02:10 commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
02:36 Macron also said France will start training Ukrainian pilots as he reiterated that Ukraine
02:42 should be allowed to use Western-provided weapons to strike Russian military targets.
02:48 The Netherlands and Denmark promised last year to give F-16 warplanes to Ukraine and
02:53 the United States is training Ukrainian pilots at a base in Arizona.
03:01 The promise of French aircraft will likely be welcomed in Kiev.
03:06 Ukraine is currently fighting to hold back a renewed Russian push in eastern areas, including
03:11 the border regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk.
03:15 Russian troops are seeking to exploit Kiev's shortages of ammunition and soldiers along
03:19 the front line.
03:22 Zelensky is due to meet French officials in Paris on Friday.
03:30 "Far-right parties need to be ready to overcome their divisions if they want to make an impact
03:37 in the next EU Parliament. Germany's AFD is searching for a new political family after
03:45 its expulsion from identity and democracy and it might decide to form its own one."
03:54 "The number of far-right parties are radicalization, are on a path of radicalization, which means
04:00 that I don't think all of them will be put together after the elections. We'd rather
04:05 see not one but three instead of two political groups. That's also the reason why Marine
04:12 Le Pen recently made clear that she wanted to have a clear, cut a clear distance vis-a-vis
04:19 the AFD."
04:21 If projections are confirmed and AFD gets 15 seats in the European Parliament, it would
04:28 then need 23 additional MEPs from at least seven member states to form its own parliamentary
04:35 group.
04:39 Talks among parties have already started. According to the Euronews Poll Center, Bulgaria's
04:45 revival is one of the parties that reached out to AFD about a potential alliance. There's
04:52 also movement concerning other right-wing MEP candidates from Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria,
05:00 Hungary and Slovakia.
05:06 The common ground among them seems to be a softer approach towards Russia, as Ukraine
05:13 is set to remain a top issue in the new legislature.
05:20 Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed Germany will start deporting criminals from Afghanistan
05:30 and Syria again after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left four wounded and one
05:35 dead in Mannheim last week.
05:39 The 25-year-old attacker had come to Germany in 2014 as an asylum seeker.
05:46 Addressing Germany's parliament, Scholz promised that deportation rules for all who commit
05:52 or support criminal or terrorist acts would be tightened.
05:59 Germany does not currently deport convicted asylum seekers to Afghanistan or Syria, but
06:06 the chancellor said his government was working on a solution to enable deportation to Afghanistan's
06:24 neighbouring countries.
06:29 Migration has been one of the major topics that far-right and mainstream parties have
06:33 been exploiting in order to gain votes in the European elections.
06:40 Scholz and his Social Democrats as well as other mainstream parties have been trying
06:45 to depict themselves as tough on migration and radical Islam in hopes that voters won't
06:50 turn to the far-right alternative for Germany to tackle these issues.
06:57 British paratroopers had their passports checked by French customs officers as soon as they
07:05 landed on Normandy soil for D-Day celebrations. The troops said they had never experienced
07:12 such checks before.
07:14 More than 300 units from the UK, Belgium and the US parachuted into a D-Day drop zone to
07:21 recreate the airborne operation that took place 80 years ago. The Allied invasion, which
07:27 began on 6 June 1944, opened a new hole in Hitler's defences, accelerating the final
07:34 defeat of Nazi Germany.
07:42 It completed its first full test flight of the Starship rocket. It was the fourth launch
07:47 of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket that NASA is banking on taking humans to Mars.
07:53 The spacecraft reached an altitude of nearly 211 kilometres and travelled at more than
07:58 26,000 kilometres per hour before beginning its descent. Parts of the Starship broke away
08:05 during re-entry but it reached its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean.
08:13 Muslims in Bosnia are departing for Saudi Arabia to take part in one of the biggest
08:20 religious gatherings on Earth. More than 2,200 Bosnians will join the 1.5 million worshippers
08:26 from around the world making their way to Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which
08:31 starts next Friday. It's one of the five pillars of Islam religious practices which include
08:36 fasting during Ramadan and five prayers each day. Every Muslim is obliged to attend Hajj
08:42 once in their lifetime if they're physically and financially able to do so.
08:49 Voters in Croatia head to the polls on Sunday and will choose from 300 candidates for their
08:57 12 seats in the European Parliament. But even with modest wishes, some voters are unsure
09:03 the EU Parliament can meet their demands.
09:10 I think that the European policy is increasingly having an impact on the lives of the citizens
09:17 and that it's very important to choose the option for which we think certain things can
09:22 help.
09:23 Things are actually happening behind the scenes so we don't know to what extent the European
09:30 Parliament is influencing the Commission. And the Commission is influencing us, so we
09:35 don't know.
09:42 But it's not just the knowledge of the workings of the European Union that drives voters to
09:47 the polls.
09:54 In 2019, Croatia came bottom of the turnout table with just 29% of the electorate voting,
10:23 and numbers are expected to be low this Sunday too.
10:27 Prediction of the result of Sunday election in Croatia show that they will be pretty much
10:31 the same as they were five years ago.
10:34 The centre-right Croatian Democratic Union formed a government with the right-wing Homeland
10:39 Movement Party in May. Croatia, like many countries in Europe, has tilted to the right,
10:45 but analysts say right-wing parties won't enter the EU Parliament.
10:52 Croatia will most likely not go to the right. It will potentially get a representative who
10:59 will enter the right-wing category, but that will be one or two at most. So Croatia is holding
11:06 a kind of a medium-term course in the European elections.
11:12 Voting in Croatia starts on Sunday at 7am local time and polls close later that evening.
11:19 The first preliminary results based on exit polls are expected to be released around 7pm.
11:27 Euronews, The News.
11:34 (upbeat music)