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STORY: ::Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders kicks off four days of voting in the European Parliament election

::June 6, 2024

::The Hague, Netherlands

::Wilders' party is set to gain seats in this election, which it failed to do in 2019

:: Geert Wilders, Dutch far-right leader

"It's one of the major issues in the Dutch politics today. What direction will we go when it comes to our border and immigration and asylum policy? It's now a very close call between the Social Democrats and the Greens, who are combining forces, and my own Party for Freedom. Who will be, and will be at the end of the day, the largest party? And this is very important as a message to the European Union, and also for achieving and making a larger group in the European Parliament that gives us power to change all those European regulations in order to be more in charge of it ourselves here in the national parliaments."

A nationwide opinion poll published on the eve of the vote put Wilders' anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV) in a tie for first place with the Labour/GreenLeft combination, with both projected to get 8 seats.

This would mean a huge gain for Wilders, who failed to secure a seat in the previous EU election in 2019.

Labour and GreenLeft won 6 and 3 seats respectively four years ago. The two left-wing parties run on a joint ticket this year, but will have separate factions in parliament after the vote.

Wilders is riding a wave of support in the Netherlands, where his promises of a crackdown on asylum migration already brought him a large win at the general election in November last year.