D66, PVV leading in EU election poll

The D66 and PVV parties are the biggest frontrunners in the polls for the European elections this Thursday. The D66 is pro-Europe while the PVV is anti-Europe. Both parties stand at 24 seats in the poll from Maurice de Hond. The D66 is one seat up from last week. The VVD has 22 seats in front of the CDA (21) and the SP (20). The PvdA follows with ten seats and the ChristenUnie has eight. GroenLinks has seven seats, the Party for Animals five. SGP and 50Plus both have four seats and the Pirate Party has one. PvdA-leader Diederik Samsom said that the European elections are not about the PVV or the D66, who are leading the polls, but about who will become the biggest fraction in the European Parliament. A tight race is being run between the Christian democrats and the social democrats. During a party gathering in Amsterdam, Samsom said the voter can make the difference whether it becomes a Europe "of market and coin or of people and work." Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the social democratic SPD party and vice chancellor and minister of Economy and Energy, was a guest at the meeting and spoke out against the parties that place people and countries against each other, and wants to close the borders again. He said that Europe must keep cooperating, especially keeping history in mind. Gabriel said he is one of the first generation of Germans born in a time of peace, and that he will also die in a time of peace. He called high unemployment in the youth of South Europe, at 50 percent, the scandal of modern Europe.