Germany, France and Italy are among the big four countries when it comes to shares of seats in the European Parliament, and in each case, polls appear to indicate that their respective ruling parties will gain the most votes in the June 2009 European Parliament elections.

In Germany, which has the largest share of seats in the European Parliament, the Social Democrats are seen trailing the Christian Democrats by more than 10 per cent, euronews said.

In France, president Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP is predicted to get about 27 per cent, followed by the opposition socialists with about 21 per cent, with liberal-centrists MoDem at 13 per cent and Daniel Cohh-Bendit’s Europe Ecologie at 10 per cent.

In Italy, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party was said by a mid-May 2009 poll to be 14 percentage points ahead of the opposition Democratic Party, but a media furore about questions about an alleged relationship with a teenage model is reported to be damaging Berlusconi’s popularity.

The other member of the big four, the United Kingdom, is a different story. With political life in uproar about a scandal over MPs’ expenses, dominant political forces Labour and Tories could get only about a fifth of votes collectively in the European Parliament elections, the Guardian said.

UK taxpayers’ money was the theme picked up by the eurosceptic Libertas party, which arranged a photo opportunity outside Westminster on May 28 2009 featuring model Amy Diamond clad in paint in the colours of the EU flag, and little else.

Libertas, which originated in Ireland as a group opposing the Lisbon Treaty but now has wider ambitions in the very institution it despises, said that the Diamond photo shoot was meant to portray "the sleaze and corruption of greedy MEPs that dwarfs the current abuse of taxpayers’ money in the UK parliament".

Diamond said: "I am delighted to bare all for Libertas. What have MEPs got to hide? I want them to get everything off their chest like me."

Ireland, which will send just 12 MEPs to the European Parliament, is set for a political drama of its own, if polls are correct.

Two weeks ago, a poll for the Irish Times showed support for Brian Cowen's ruling coalition had dropped to a record low, and a new poll said that the figure had dropped further, by one point. Cowen’s Fianna Fail was said to be behind the opposition Fine Gael by about 16 per cent.

In the Netherlands, which has 25 MEP seats, the popularity of Geert Wilders was said to be growing, transcending the support base of working class voters who feel left out of the political system, with polls showing increased support for Wilders among those higher up on the educational scale, Radio Netherlands said. Wilders’s Party for Freedom rails against Islam in Europe and against immigration, wants Bulgaria and Romania booted out the EU (an entity which, in any case, Wilders wants to "bring down from the inside") and is fiercely against Turkey ever being admitted to the EU.