Conservative parties in three EU Baltic countries have prevailed in the votes cast for the European Parliament, preliminary results showed on Monday.
In Latvia and Lithuania the respective governing party came out on top, while in Estonia an opposition force won. Eurosceptic parties received only modest support overall in the countries that all border Russia.
In Estonia, the conservative Isamaa party won two seats, one more than in the previous European elections in 2019, while the liberal Reform Party of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas lost one of its seats in the EU legislature.
Like the co-governing Social Democrats, it is sending one lawmaker to Brussels, while the remaining three of the seven Estonian seats went to three opposition parties.
The winners of the vote in Latvia were Prime Minister Evika Siliņa's centre-right Unity party and the right-wing National Alliance - they each won two seats. The other five seats went to a governing party, opposition forces and a liberal party not represented in the Latvian parliament.
Unlike in previous votes in Latvia, this time no clearly pro-Russian party won a seat in the EU parliament.
In Lithuania, which has 11 seats in the parliament, the ruling Conservatives of Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė were ahead of the opposition Social Democrats.
Participation in the European elections, in which the issues of national security and defence were at the forefront in all three countries in view of Russia's war on Ukraine, was subdued.
In Estonia it was 37.7% and Latvia 33.8%, while in Lithuania only 28.4% of those eligible to vote cast their ballot.