Stockholm  – Sweden’s two main parties, the ruling conservatives and the opposition Social Democrats, held their ground but failed to make major gains in European Parliament elections, final tallies showed Sunday as a new party sailed into the pan- European legislature.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s conservative Moderate Party was on 18.8 per cent slightly up on the result of the last poll in 2004.

“It is an improvement, we retained our (four) seats,” Reinfeldt told broadcaster SVT, noting that his party had gained somewhat. Reinfeldt said it was “not uncommon” for parties in government to suffer at the polls.

Of Reinfeldt’s three coalition partners, the Liberal Party made a stronger showing than 2004 while the Christian Democrats and Centre Party scored a little lower than their previous results, according to returns.

The Pirate Party, a one-issue party that supports free internet downloads and file-sharing, won one of Sweden’s 18 seats in the European Parliament.

The party, which has a strong following among younger Swedish voters, won 7.1 per cent of the vote.

A SVT exit poll said the Pirate Party was the strongest party in the 18-30 age group, especially among male voters.

Overall voter turnout increased 6 percentage points to almost 44 per cent.

The opposition Social Democrats remained the largest party but only marginally increased their vote. Their 24.6 per cent translates to five seats. Their allies, the Greens, increased their share to 10.8 per cent, doubling their seat tally to two.

Big losers were the opposition Left Party, which saw its share halved to 5.6 per cent and the June List, a Eurosceptic party that dropped some 10 percentage points to 3.6 per cent and failed to clear the 4-per-cent threshold needed for representation.

Sweden is due to take over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union on July 1. (dpa)