It's a very mixed picture across Europe, but many of the established players have lost out. In Germany, the Greens have gained at the expense of the governing centre centre left; in Italy, the right-wing League has capitalised on its place in government and made significant gains.

At European level, the biggest centre groupings are set to lose dozens of seats together.

The centre-right European People's Party is projected to be the largest party with 178 MEPs - but that's a loss of 43 seats.

The Socialists and Democrats on the centre left are likewise projected to lose 39 seats, down to 152.

Other parties are benefiting from this swing.

The main Liberal group, ALDE, is expected to be up 41 to 108; the Greens are projected to gain 17 to 67. Right-wing nationalists, meanwhile, are expected to pick up dozens of seats.

But the centre parties remain the largest groups – just not as large as they were before.

Image source, Getty

Matteo Salvini is spearheading a new alliance of right-wing nationalists across Europe.

The Italian interior minister is also celebrating victory for his League party at home. It's too early to give a reliable figure, but exit polls quoted by Rai News give the League 27-31%, well ahead of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) which is predicted to get 21%-25%.

The League's coalition partner Five Star is heading for 18.5%-22.5%.

Voting in Italy ended at 22:00 BST (23:00 CET).

In Britain, with 100 of 373 counts complete, the brand new Brexit Party is in the lead with 31.9%.

But it seems to have been a difficult election for the two largest parties, the Conservatives and Labour, who are down 12-14% each so far.

It's also been a good night for the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, which got just 6% of the vote in 2014 - and so far is on 12.5%.

The BBC is forecasting that British turnout is lower than the average - at about 37%. Earlier, the European Parliament said the Europe-wide turnout was around 51%.

The Greens have had good results in Finland and Sweden, France and Germany.

In Germany, the Economist's Berlin bureau chief cautions against the narrative of the rise of the far right. He points out that Germany's two large centre parties lost votes not to the far-right AfD, but the Greens.

This is where you see the results in graphics across the EU as they happen.

Now that restrictions are lifted, our UK team is diving deep into the results as they happen.

You can find the UK results live page here.

But for the broader European view, this is the place to be.

We've already reported on a big night for the Greens in France and Germany.

They're celebrating in Finland too with a historic second place, and as you can see, Finland's electoral authorities have already finished counting.

Welcome to our live coverage of the European Parliament elections across 28 member states.

Broadcasting restrictions in the UK have now been lifted and official results are due to start arriving shortly. So here's a summary of estimates and projections across Europe.

First, the European Parliament's projections show that the two biggest centre parties, the centre-right EPP and centre-left S&D, are set to lose their majority - dropping to less than half of all seats for the first time.

Meanwhile, the Greens have done rather well, according to the projections - potentially picking up 18 seats.

On the nationalist right, the European groupings are expected to change from the last parliament and a new alliance will emerge. In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally may have topped the poll with a predicted 23.7% of the vote. And in Austria, despite a major political scandal just a week before the vote, the far-right Freedom Party won a projected 17.5% - down just a couple of percentage points.

Reuters

We reported earlier that the conservatives were celebrating in Greece, in the belief that they have beaten the ruling left-wing Syriza party.

Now Reuters news agency cites an anonymous source in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras party as saying he is likely to call snap elections in June.

The leader of the conservative New Democracy party has called on Mr Tsipras to resign.

We just mentioned Dutch police being called in to deal with Romanian voters who saw the doors close on them before they could vote at their embassy in The Hague. Here are some of the scenes around the rest of Europe, including the UK, which shows the long queues outside Romanian embassies. This wasn't just a European election but a referendum that Romania's ruling party was not happy about.

A reminder that the BBC - like all UK broadcasters - is restricted on what we can report while polls are open.That all changes at 22:00 BST (23:00 CET), when exit polls and estimates vanish and official results start pouring in.We'll be covering the developments as they happen.

Romanians have been voting in big numbers across Europe - and the queues have been big outside embassies in Paris, London, Brussels and several other cities. In The Hague things got angry when voters were turned away outside the Romanian embassy, NOS journalist Robert Bas reports.

Hundreds were still waiting outside when the doors were shut at 21:00 local time - so some voters climbed the fences and police had to be called.

According to Robert Bas, voters shouted "thieves, thieves" as they banged on the doors of the embassy, complaining that the Romanian government was making it as hard as possible to vote. Romanians were not just voting in European elections, but in a referendum called by the president against the ruling social democrat PSD's justice reforms. The government has been fearing a bloody nose.

Image source, Getty Images

In France, Marine Le Pen believes her National Rally party has had a good night against President Emmanuel Macron's ruling party, based on exit polls she's been looking at.

"It’s a vote for France and for the people. It is good news and it is vital for a country that has been floating for months in confusion," she said.

Mrs Le Pen ran against Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential election - and lost, rebranding her National Front party - and it seems to have paid off.

The leader of Mr Macron's Renaissance alliance, Nathalie Loiseau, has given a defensive rebuttal, saying that two years since winning the election against Mrs Le Pen "the presidential majority shows it can hold its own".

"The fight is not over, we will lead it in the European Parliament to stop the nationalists from weakening France," she said.