Day: June 7, 2024

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has congratulated his Greek and Danish counterparts George Gerapetritis and Lars Løkke Rasmussen on the election of their countries to the UN Security Council.

“Given the commitment and the shared vision for more secure environment in our region, Europe and beyond, we can combine efforts for better outcomes. All the success!” FM Mirzoyan said in a post on X.

The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday elected Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia to the 15-member U.N. Security Council for two-year terms starting on Jan. 1, 2025.

The Security Council is the only U.N. body that can make legally binding decisions such as imposing sanctions and authorizing use of force.

Dutch voters have begun four days of voting across the European Union, with exit polls suggesting a tight race between a left-green alliance and the party of anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders, the BBC reports.

Right-wing and far-right parties are widely expected to make big gains in many of the EU’s 27 member states, and that appears to have been borne out in the Netherlands, to an extent.

Although the Green-Labour alliance is set to take more seats in the European Parliament according to the exit poll, Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party is on course for big gains.

But he has not repeated the runaway victory of last November’s general election.

Under European law final results are not released until every country has voted, late on Sunday evening. Some 373 million Europeans are eligible to vote in the world’s second biggest democratic election after India.

The next European Parliament will have 720 seats, with each country having seats proportionate to their population. Germany will have 96, France 81 and Italy 76, while the Netherlands has 31.

Ireland, Malta and the Czech Republic vote on Friday, and the rest of the EU votes over the weekend.