This EUX.tv news update previews the presidency and hears from Bernard Bulcke, the spokesman for the Belgian permanent representation to the European Union. Bulcke said one issue that needs to be addressed under the presidency is the way that the rotating presidency works together with the European parliament, and also the cooperation between the Council and the Commission.

A divided Belgium next Wednesday will take over the European Union’s six-month rotating presidency from Spain. With a caretaker government in charge, Belgium is preparing to help the block find compromises between the EU’s institutions over the Lisbon Treaty and between member states over rules for eurozone budget deficits.

Since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in December 2009, the rotating presidency of member states in the EU involves a leadership in all government-to-government talks at the EU, except for those in the European Council, where the EU heads of state and government come together. This Council now is chaired by Herman van Rompuy, a former Belgian prime minister, for a 2 1/2 year period.

This is the news report on the European elections put together in the zEUs project, by the European studies students at Maastricht University.

After the European Parliament elections, analysts discuss the low voter turnout and the gains of anti-European parties.

The coverage of the European elections on EUX.TV – the European Affairs Channel, is best followed via our YouTube partner channel.

Please go to: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=EUXTV&view=videos.

The links to our reports, interviews, raw news videos and debate will be made available via the EUX.TV website in the coming days.

BRUSSELS – The European Parliament is preparing for a media-frenzy Sunday evening when the results of what it calls the biggest and most-complicated European elections ever will be collected and presented at its venue in Brussels.

Some 70 television channels, a similar number of radio stations and hundreds of journalists will be at the parliament in Brussels on Sunday evening to report on the elections.

Video: How European are the European Elections? (zEUs Project Video)

The parliament has made available 11 multi-camera studios, wired up with eight kilometers of fiberoptic cable and four kilometers of audio cable.

The studios are only available to tv channels that are a member of the Eurovision network and to the parliament’s own webtv channel; the parliament has denied use of one of these studios to EUX.TV.

Not only the number of candidates but also the number of different political parties complicates the vote. In France alone, 160 different parties are taking part. In Italy 82 and 17 in Estonia.

These elections “are bigger and more complicated” than in 2004, said Jaume Duch, spokesman for the European Parliament at a briefing.

In the European parliament, the parties combine cross-border alliances and create political groups. These political groups subsequently determine the way that the parliaments influences EU legislation.

The final results of the votes in all of the union’s 27 EU member states won’t be ready officially before Monday afternoon, when the Polish results are due. But from 21.00 hours local time Sunday evening, the parliament will start posting data on a special website that is not accessible yet. The first reliable projection of the outcome is expected shortly before 23.00 hours.

The first moment to watch will be at 21.00 hours, when the parliament will announce the first initial estimate for the turnout. Several individual member states whose polls close before that time, such as Austria by then may already have released their results.

At 22.00 hours, the last polling stations close, in Portugal, and that’s then the moment that the parliament will post a first initial projection of the outcome.

The projection will then be finetuned, so that by 23.00 hours, a formal projection can be presented.

From then on, at the parliament there will be reactions from the different political groups.

With less than one week to go before the elections, the fate of a number of political parties vying for seats in the European parliament remains unclear. Among them, the Italian democratic party Modem, which is still considering joining either the PSE socialists group or the liberal-democrat ALDE group.

“We’ll have at least one surprise up our sleeve,” said a spokesman for one of the groups.

One thing is clear though: the British Conservatives no longer will be part of the EPP group, which includes mostly christian-democratic parties.

It’s a city within a city, an unmissable power hub. Presenting Europe, in Brussels. The institutions have three and a half million square metres of office and meeting space, and 50.000 people working in them.

This programme was made available to broadcasters by the European Parliament.

Take the survey and let us know how to vote for the European Parliament on the 4th of June in the Netherlands, if we are to vote at all.

EUX.TV founder Raymond Frenken is offering his vote in the European elections to the viewers of this channel. The results of the survey will determine how he is going to vote on the 4th of June in his home country, the Netherlands.

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes tells a press conference in Brussels that she has decided to slap a record fine of 1.06 billion euro ($1.45 billion) on the world’s biggest chip maker Intel Inc. for having abused its market position at the expense of consumers.

Intel says there has been “zero harm” to consumers and that it will appeal the decision.

Check our YouTube channel for more videos on this topic.

EUX.TV managed to exclusively film the taking-down of the controversial Entropa artwork in the atrium of the European Council before security guards ask our reporter to stop filming.

Less than one week after a new Czech Prime Minister took office and with nearly two months to go in the Czech presidency, the controversial “Entropa” art work by Czech artist David Czerny has been removed from the walls of the giant atrium at the European Union’s Council building in Brussels.

A statement from the Czech EU Presidency said the removal is “the outcome of the agreement between… Czerny and the government of the Czech Republic.”

According to the Czech engineers taking down Entropa, it will be moved to the Dox museum in Prague.

After his controversial address in the European Parliament, Czech President Vaclav Klaus went to the offices of the Czech PermRep in Brussels to answer questions from journalists and to elaborate on his address.

Full playlist on Vaclav Klaus.

Vaclav Klaus: MEPs walk out during plenary address

Filmed with a Flip camera at the launch of the European blogging competition, organized by the European Journalism Centre.