EU wants Dutch to explain early release of poll results

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission will ask the Dutch government to explain why EU vote results in the Netherlands were released early in contravention of the bloc's rules, a spokesman said Friday.

"We are going to ask for clarification from the Netherlands," said Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, a senior spokesman for the European Union's executive arm.

"We want to know who published what information, at what moment, and to whom. We will give the interested party a chance to explain itself before we make a decision" on any action, he said.

Dutch and British voters on Thursday kicked off four days of voting across Europe to choose the 736 members of the European Parliament, the only directly elected EU institution.

While the British vote results will not be released until all 27 EU nations have completed voting on Sunday, partial results from the Netherlands, where a far-right deputy made significant gains, were published as they were counted.

"We are going to varify if there's been a violation of EU rules, then we'll see what we'll do," the commission spokesman said.

The EU executive reminded member states of the result rules by mail last month, and again at a press conference Thursday. But could only take action, which could result in a fine, once the rules were broken.