Brussels, dpa - From Lisbon to Riga and from Dublin to Nicosia, the streets of Europe's capitals are lined with the faces of smiling candidates and electoral billboards.

One poster depicts a lion and a cat and the question "How much should we tame financial markets?" Another shows a brick wall and a gentle hedge below the line: "How open should our borders be?"

This week's elections, in which some 375 million citizens will choose the 736 new members of the European Union's only directly elected body, the European Parliament, are historic in more ways than one.

Held 30 years after the first such vote - Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were until 1979 appointed by their national governments - the elections will involve an unprecedented number of EU countries: 27.

Moreover, its winners are set to gain more power than ever, if the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty does indeed come into force, as planned, in 2010.

And yet, there appears to be relatively little interest among voters.

According to a TNS Opinion survey commissioned by the European Parliament and published about a week before polling was due to begin, only 49 per cent of those asked said they planned to cast their ballots between Thursday and Sunday.

Sara Hagemann, an analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, says a relatively low turnout would represent "a defeat for the European Parliament," which has been trying to raise its profile in recent weeks, not least through MTV television ads aimed at European youth.

Public indifference towards the European Parliament is a shame, says Piotr Kaczynski of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a think tank, since "the majority of the rules by which Europeans live by have been decided by MEPs."

The EU writes roughly three-quarters of the bloc's regulations. Furthermore, its elected body has the final say over more than half of those guidelines, making its political weight considerable.

Nonetheless, parliament has been dogged by accusations of powerlessness and privilege, often being described as a taxpayer- funded "gravy train."

To counter that image, the parliament has published the monthly pre-tax salaries that MEPs will be getting - 5,963.33 euros (8,260.93 dollars), down from the 7,665.31 euros paid out during the outgoing legislature.

Kaczynski argues that another reason for the steadily declining popularity of European Parliament elections - turnout used to be around 60 per cent until the late 1980s - is the failure of the EU's establishment to create truly EU-wide political debates.

"We should be talking about the decline in European manufacturing. Instead, the only time Europeans come together is during the Eurovision song contest or the European football championship," Kaczynski told dpa.

The election is also hampered by the parliament's consensus-based operations. Unlike national elections, European Parliament votes do not generally produce dramatic winners and losers - a "government" and "opposition" - but an endless series of left-right coalitions.

Indeed, on this occasion, most analysts believe that the result will mirror that of five years ago, with the conservative European People's Party (EPP) likely to maintain its status as the parliament's largest group.

The struggling left-of-centre Socialist Group (PES), meanwhile, is tipped to remain the bodies' second-largest group, ahead of the liberals (ALDE).

Pundits warn that a low turnout could favour fringe parties on the left and right - especially since the vote is taking place amid the bloc's worst recession in 60 years.

Kaczynski believes that there will be gains by either far-right or communist parties in Austria, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France or the Czech Repubic.

However, he adds that those gains will likely be offset by expected heavy losses by a Polish political coalition called League and Self-Defence, an unnatural mix of nationalists and left-wing populists, which gained 17 seats in the previous round of voting.

Nor is Libertas, a eurosceptic movement that played a key role in persuading the Irish to vote no in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, tipped to do well.(dpa)