Continent-wide elections for the European Parliament kick off on Thursday, with the Netherlands the first country to vote in a poll that could see up to 360 million people across the 27 EU member states cast their ballots over four days. Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic with economic growth subdued, shocked by the war in Ukraine, struggling to cope with rising immigration and attempting to face the dangers posed by climate change, this is a European Union election rife with uncertainty about the path ahead. Not to mention the fact that it is the first election since the United Kingdom becam…