Right, center-right lead left in EU ballot

ROME, June 7 (UPI) -- Center-right parties came out ahead of liberals as voting ended Sunday for 736 seats in the European Parliament, elections officials said.

Amid a turnout estimated at 43 percent to 44 percent, voters also handed victories to far-right and anti-immigrant parties, the BBC reported Sunday.

Britain's Labor Party, the Social Democrats of Germany and the Socialist Party of France were heading for what the British broadcaster called historic defeats.

Jose Manuel Barroso, a likely winner of a second term as European Commission president, told voters the EU would take the lesson of the election's outcome.

"Overall, the results are an undeniable victory for those parties and candidates that support the European project and want to see the European Union delivering policy responses to their everyday concerns," Barroso said.

Socialist leader Martin Schulz called the defeat "a sad evening for social democracy in Europe."

Nineteen EU countries voted in the final round Sunday, including Italy where election politics included a series of scandals involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's private life.

In Britain, which voted Thursday, political observers expected an expense-abuse scandal involving high-ranking officials would affect the national political scene.

In Ireland, Friday's parliamentary vote was seen as a crucial test ahead of an October referendum on the EU's first rejected by Irish voters last year.