Meanwhile in Italy

It's still unclear, but it appears that neither major coalition has managed to secure a majority, which means that Italian politics are (once again) highly fluid:

Based on votes counted by 0230 GMT, ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition looks set to win the most seats in the lower house of parliament.

It is tipped to get 248-268 seats - below the 316 needed for a majority.

Forming a government may now take weeks of negotiation and coalition-building.

Alternatively, fresh elections could be held in a bid to produce a more decisive result - though there is no guarantee that would happen.

Vote projection figures put the anti-establishment Five Star Movement in second place. It has made significant gains and could emerge as the largest single party, with 216-236 lower house seats.

A centre-left coalition led by the governing Democratic Party stands in third place, with a projected 107-127 seats - its prospects battered by public anger over unemployment and immigration.

Final confirmed results are not expected for several hours.

The collapse of the center-left is not a surprise.

The core tenet of the center-left in the EU is support for the EU, and the EU is fundamentally a conservative neoliberal institution.

Unqualified support of the EU means that the center-left has already destroyed itself, and the voters are finally recognizing this.