On May 24, Maltese voters will go to the polls to elect six Members of the European Parliament out of a total throughout the EU of 751. As reflects our size, the numbers are minuscule, under one per cent of all seats. But while our individual votes are lost in the noise, there can be no question – as we saw so embarrassingly in the vote on the Individual Investment Programme – that Maltese MEPs can exert some influence behind the scenes in the European Parliament.

As to the elections, whereas throughout the majority of European states most voters’ choice will be to stay at home, Maltese voters will be out in force – as they are for all elections. This I would suggest is not because the Maltese are intrinsically more democratic than other nations – or even have any understanding of the wider repercussions of the elections – but because such is the political polarisation here that voters feel impelled to vote for one party or the other simply to register their tribal loyalty to, or their dissatisfaction with, the government of the day.

In fairness to Malta, this is no different to what goes on in other countries, except that elsewhere the number of people who feel minded to act this way comprises only a small proportion of the population.

The average turnout across Europe in 2009 was 43 per cent, ranging from 19 per cent in Slovakia to 91 per cent in Luxembourg and Belgium.

The key question is: are the European elections of any importance? Does it matter whether Maltese citizens cast their votes or not? There are two answers, one affected by international considerations, and the other domestic.

Dealing with the international implications first, there is one major difference to the European parliamentary elections this time around. This stems from the political and economic turmoil which has followed the eurozone crisis.

Across Europe, populist parties are riding a wave of anger about the need for austerity and the impact of policies allowing free movement of labour and the concomitant issue of immigration.

What this will mean for the composition and balance of power of the next European Parliament is a moot point because the populists are divided.

They come from the right in Britain, the left in Ireland and the downright eccentric in Italy and all over the continent.

What is clear is that the elections will lead to European politics becoming nastier and more unstable, just at a time when Europe requires stability almost above all else. Leaders need to tackle threats from the lacklustre and uneven performance of the single currency, the political instability in Italy and the risks from banking stress tests later in the year, all of which could well reignite market concerns about sovereign debts, causing the crisis to flare up again.

Public fears about immigration will continue, as will the widening economic divide between northern and southern European countries, and about the march of right-wing extremists across the continent.

From France and Britain to Finland, and from Norway and Greece to Hungary, there are parties standing on policies which are anti-immigrant and anti-Europe. These are likely to win many seats in the Parliament. For example, a deal struck between Marine le Pen of the right-wing Front Nationale in France and Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands suggests that a significant number of MEPs in the new European Parliament will be committed to blocking, or at least disrupting, the European ‘project’.

It is thought that eurosceptic parties could account for as many as 20 per cent of the seats won.

There is no coherent European protest vote but, rather like the Tea Party in the United States, there is a mood of non-cooperation which will make the newly elected European Parliament’s (limited) role even more difficult to fulfil.

Voters feel impelled to vote simply to register their tribal loyalty to, or their dissatisfaction with, the government of the day

The outcome of its deliberations will be more uncertain to predict. Many of the anti-EU political parties are eroding the support of parties of the centre. It is feared that a populist rising might make for tenser debate, less racial tolerance and even a threat to free trade.

The fact that at the helm of the EU presidency will be a government in Athens dealing with its sixth year of recession and, as a consequence, looking extremely wobbly does not encourage confidence.

The bigger obstacle looming ahead, however, is that under the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, for the first time the newly elected European Parliament will have to endorse the election of the candidate nominated by the leaders of the national governments of the 28 sovereign states as the new President of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.

That choice will be made almost certainly on the basis of the euro-election results. Political groups in the Parliament are already exploiting this to put forward their preferred choices and the current head of the European Parliament, the leader of the European socialists, Martin Schultz, a German, is already being touted as a possible candidate if the socialists win May’s elections.

The laughable claim is that this process of selecting the new president to replace José Manuel Barroso will appear more democratic to ordinary European citizens. I doubt it. Most Europeans – foremost among them my compatriots – neither know nor care who any of these politicians are, or what they stand for.

The suggestion that EU leaders should accept a candidate of whichever political group gets most seats in May is a recipe for ending up with the wrong person. Instead of ensuring that the EU’s executive arm is led by the most competent technocrat (with political skills) that Europe can muster for the job, capable of creating a more effective euro-bureaucracy and restoring faith in the EU and its leaders, it is likely to have foisted on it another nondescript politician.

While the election of Malta’s six MEPs will have a minimal impact on this or any other European politics, the domestic effect of the euro-elections will be more significant. The elections will provide the first test of the public mood 14 months after the electoral convulsion that hit Maltese politics last March.

They will clearly be a test of the government’s performance, in which the cash-for-citizenship scheme, the reduction in the utility rates and the general competence and governance of the Labour government will be judged.

PN and PL party leaders will therefore be studying the results carefully. They will wish to assess whether there has been any substantial erosion in the total votes cast for the Labour and Nationalist candidates as a whole. Has the 36,000 vote difference between the parties been reduced, and if so by how much? Has the Nationalist Party made any discernible progress since last year? How many candidates from each party will be elected? Will there be a protest vote by those disaffected voters who swung to Labour now turning instead to Alternattiva Demokratika?

All politics are local – none more so than in Malta.

These will be the absorbing questions which will engage political commentators domestically. But it would be foolhardy if we as voters were to ignore the much greater international issues which these European elections represent. The elections are important, but the outcome, except locally, is beyond our control.