Far-right flops in Romanian poll

The far-right group, which had five seats before the poll, has failed to reach the 5% threshold for a seat.

The ruling National Liberal Party also suffered a heavy defeat, coming third behind the Democratic Party of President Traian Basescu and the opposition Social Democrats.

Turnout was less than 30%, around the average for EU votes in eastern Europe.

First EU election

Sunday's elections were the first held in Romania for the European Parliament.

Romania joined the EU in January this year and was given 35 seats. With 99% of the vote counted, Greater Romania had managed only 4.5% of the vote.

The party leader, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, said he would resign from Romania's Parliament but would stay on as party leader.

Greater Romania had been part of the nationalist Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) bloc in Brussels but walked out in protest after an Italian colleague made derogatory remarks about Romanians.

Their departure left the bloc with only 18 members, two short of the 20 required for a political grouping in the European Parliament.

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