Ireland and the Czech Republic, the two biggest obstacles to reform of the EU's Lisbon treaty, went to the polls today on the second day of the four-day election marathon for the European parliament.

With Václav Klaus, the Czech president, climate change denier and Europhobe, urging Czechs to cast a vote against Brussels, European leaders were anxiously watching to see if either of the two ­countries would copy the anti-EU triumph in the Netherlands of Geert Wilders, the anti-immigration populist.

Wilders' Freedom party shook the Dutch political establishment in the first of the 27 elections for the European parliament yesterday by coming second with 17% of the ballot, almost tripling his vote from Dutch general elections in 2006.

"A breakthrough," he called it today, attacking the traditional parties for trying to erect what he called a "cordon sanitaire" around him.