Official results were expected any moment after Italian polling stations closed at 11 p.m. local time (2100GMT), officially ending a marathon election spanning four days across 27 bloc member countries.

In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections, a massive political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term that ends in 2027.

In Germany, Scholz suffered such an ignominious fate that his long-established Social Democratic party fell behind the extreme-right Alternative for Germany, which surged into second place.

Adding insult to injury, the National Rally’s lead candidate, Jordan Bardella, all of 28 years old, immediately took on a presidential tone with his victory speech in Paris, opening with “My dear compatriots” and adding “the French people have given their verdict, and it’s final.”

Macron acknowledged the thud of defeat. “I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials.

The four-day polls in the 27 EU countries were the world’s second-biggest exercise in democracy, behind India’s recent election. At the end, the rise of the far right was even more stunning than many analysts predicted. The French National Rally stood at just over 30% or about twice as much as Macron’s pro-European centrist Renew party that is projected to reach around 15%.

In Germany, the most populous nation in the 27-member bloc, projections indicated that the AfD overcame a string of scandals involving its top candidate to rise to 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. In comparison, the combined result for the three parties in the German governing coalition barely topped 30%.

Overall across the EU, two mainstream and pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The gains of the far right came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth position in the legislature.

For decades, the European Union, which has its roots in the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, confined the hard right to the political fringes. With its strong showing in these elections, the far right could now become a major player in policies ranging from migration to security and climate.

The Greens were predicted to fall from 20% to 12% in Germany, a traditional bulwark for environmentalists, with more losses expected in France and several other EU nations. Their defeat could well have an impact on the EU’s overall climate change policies, still the most progressive across the globe.

The center-right Christian Democratic bloc of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which already weakened its green credentials ahead of the polls, dominated in Germany with almost 30%, easily beating Scholz’s Social Democrats, who fell to 14%, even behind the AfD.

“What you have already set as a trend is all the better – strongest force, stable, in difficult times and by a distance,” von der Leyen told her German supporters by video link from Brussels.

As well as France, the hard right, which focused its campaign on migration and crime, was expected to make significant gains in Italy, where Premier Giorgia Meloni was tipped to consolidate her power.

Voting will continue in Italy until late in the evening and many of the 27 member states have not yet released any projections. Nonetheless, data already released confirmed earlier predictions: the EU’s massive exercise in democracy is expected to shift the bloc to the right and redirect its future.

With the center losing seats to hard right parties, the EU could find it harder to pass legislation and decision-making could at times be paralyzed in the world’s biggest trading bloc.

EU lawmakers, who serve a five-year term in the 720-seat Parliament, have a say in issues from financial rules to climate and agriculture policy. They approve the EU budget, which bankrolls priorities including infrastructure projects, farm subsidies and aid delivered to Ukraine. And they hold a veto over appointments to the powerful EU commission.

These elections come at a testing time for voter confidence in a bloc of some 450 million people. Over the last five years, the EU has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic slump and an energy crisis fueled by the biggest land conflict in Europe since the Second World War. But political campaigning often focuses on issues of concern in individual countries rather than on broader European interests.

The voting marathon began in the Netherlands on Thursday, where an unofficial exit poll suggested that the anti-migrant hard right party of Geert Wilders would make important gains, even though a coalition of pro-European parties has probably pushed it into second place.

Casting his vote in the Flanders region, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the month, warned that Europe was “more under pressure than ever.”

Since the last EU election in 2019, populist or far-right parties now lead governments in three nations — Hungary, Slovakia and Italy — and are part of ruling coalitions in others including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.

“Right is good,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist and anti-migrant government, told reporters after casting his ballot. “To go right is always good. Go right!”

After the election comes a period of horse-trading, as political parties reconsider in their places in the continent-wide alliances that run the European legislature.

The biggest political group — the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) — has moved further right during the present elections on issues like security, climate and migration.

Among the most watched questions is whether the Brothers of Italy — the governing party of populist Meloni, which has neo-fascist roots — stays in the more hard-line European Conservatives and Reformists group or becomes part of a new hard right group that could form the wake of the elections. Meloni also has the option to work with the EPP.

A more worrying scenario for pro-European parties would be if the ECR joins forces with Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy group to consolidate hard-right influence.

The second biggest group — the center-left Socialists and Democrats — and the Greens refuse to align themselves with the ECR.

Questions also remain over what group Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party might join. It was previously part of the EPP but was forced out in 2021 due to conflicts over its interests and values. The far-right Alternative for Germany was kicked out of the Identity and Democracy group following a string of scandals surrounding its two lead candidates for the European Parliament.

The election also ushers in a period of uncertainty as new leaders are chosen for the European institutions. While lawmakers are jostling over places in alliances, governments will be competing to secure top EU jobs for their national officials.

Chief among them is the presidency of the powerful executive branch, the European Commission, which proposes laws and watches to ensure they are respected. The commission also controls the EU’s purse strings, manages trade and is Europe’s competition watchdog.

Other plum posts are those of European Council president, who chairs summits of presidents and prime ministers, and EU foreign policy chief, the bloc’s top diplomat.

Associated Press journalists Sylvain Plazy in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Under a steady rain, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Crown Princess Victoria and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg looked on as two soldiers raised the blue banner emblazoned with a yellow cross among the official circle of national flags at the headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

“The Russian, brutal, full-scale invasion against Ukraine united Sweden behind the conclusion that a full-fledged NATO membership is the only reasonable choice,” Kristersson said. Swedish government ministers and party leaders from across the political spectrum attended in a show of national unity.

Sweden set aside decades of post-World War II neutrality when it formally joined NATO last Thursday. Its neighbor Finland had already joined in April 2023 in another historic move ending years of military nonalignment.

Finland’s defense ministry welcomed “our brothers and sisters in arms” on X, formerly Twitter, saying “now we stand at the beginning of a new era. Together and with other allies in peace, in crisis and beyond.”

President Vladimir Putin’s decision to order Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022 triggered an about-face in public opinion in both countries and within three months they had applied to join the world’s biggest security organization.

Putin claimed to have launched the war, at least in part, over NATO’s eastward expansion toward Russia but the war had an adverse effect, pushing more countries to join the alliance. NATO leaders have promised that Ukraine itself will join one day, although almost certainly not while the conflict rages on.

“When President Putin launched his full-scale invasion two years ago, he wanted less NATO, and more control over his neighbors. He wanted to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state, but he failed,” Stoltenberg said.

“NATO is now bigger and stronger. Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before, and as the brave Ukrainians continue to fight for their freedom, we stand by their side,” he said.

Sweden’s membership completes a strategic ring of NATO territory around the Baltic Sea. The country now benefits from the alliance’s collective security guarantee — Article 5 of its treaty — a vow that an attack on one of them will be met by a response from them all.

“We have chosen you, and you have chosen us. All for one, and one for all,” Kristersson said, and he vowed that his country would uphold the values enshrined in NATO’s founding Washington Treaty.

The flag-raising ceremony came as 20,000 troops from 13 countries began NATO drills in the high north of new member Sweden as well as its neighbors Finland and Norway.

The Nordic drill is part of wider exercises called Steadfast Defender 24, NATO’s largest in decades, with up to 90,000 troops taking part over several months to show any adversary that the alliance can defend all of its territory from North America up to its borders with Russia.

“We are humble, but we are also proud. We know the expectations for Sweden are high, but we also have high expectations for ourselves,” Kristersson told reporters minutes before the ceremony. “We will share burdens, responsibilities and risks with our allies.”

Sweden brings to the table well-trained and equipped armed forces. The country has been working in close partnership with NATO during military exercises over the years, and even more since Russia’s full-fledged invasion began. It also meets NATO’s defense spending target of 2% of gross domestic product.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of NATO at https://apnews.com/hub/nato.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The head of the NATO military alliance warned Sunday that Donald Trump was putting the safety of U.S. troops and their allies at risk after the Republican presidential front-runner said Russia should be able to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who don’t meet their defense spending targets.

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Speaking Saturday at a rally in Conway, South Carolina, Trump recalled how as president he told an unidentified NATO member that he would “encourage” Russia to do as it wishes in cases of NATO allies who are “delinquent.”

“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted saying. “‘No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

Trump’s remarks caused deep concern in Poland, which was under Russian control in past centuries, and where anxieties are high over the war Russia is waging just across the Polish border in Ukraine.

“We have a hot war at our border,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday, voicing concerns about whether the United States will show “full solidarity with other NATO countries in this confrontation that promises to last for a long time with Russia.”

“We must realize that the EU cannot be an economic and civilizational giant and a dwarf when it comes to defense, because the world has changed,” he argued in a town hall speech marking the start of his party’s campaign for local elections this spring.

In 2014, NATO allies pledged to move toward spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. According to NATO estimates in early 2023, 10 of its 30 member states at the time were close to or above the 2% mark, while 13 were spending 1.5% or less.

No country is in debt to any other, or to NATO.

In a statement, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said that Trump would be able to more effectively force allies to increase their NATO spending compared to President Joe Biden, and that “when you don’t pay your defense spending you can’t be surprised that you get more war.”

Stoltenberg said he expects that, “regardless of who wins the presidential election, the U.S. will remain a strong and committed NATO ally.”

The German government did not officially comment on Trump’s remarks, but its foreign office pointed out NATO’s solidarity principle in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

“‘One for all and all for one.’ This NATO creed keeps more than 950 million people safe,” it said.

Trump’s comments were of particular concern to NATO’s front-line countries, like Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which were either under the control of Moscow or fully incorporated into the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Fears there run especially high given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, who is allied with the right-wing opposition, and who was seen as friendly to Trump during his presidency, tweeted that the Polish-U.S. alliance must be strong “regardless of who is currently in power in Poland and the USA.”

He warned: “Offending half of the American political scene serves neither our economic interests nor Poland’s security.”

In an editorial Sunday, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also called for European nations to spend more on defense.

It said that if Trump wins the presidency again, statements like the one he made on Saturday night “will increase the risk of Putin expanding his war. Europeans can only do one thing to counter this: finally invest in their military security in line with the seriousness of the situation.”

Trump’s tenure, which was marked by his open admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, became a near-existential challenge for NATO, an organization largely controlled by the United States. The prospect that Trump might return to power remains a deep concern among allies.

Stoltenberg was praised for his diplomatic skills in keeping NATO together during the Trump years, but the former Norwegian prime minister is stepping down. His successor is likely to be announced by the time allied leaders meet in Washington for NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in July.

Under NATO’s mutual defense clause, Article 5 of its founding treaty, all allies commit to help any member who comes under attack. The article has only ever been activated once – by the U.S. in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

NATO has undertaken its biggest military buildup since the Cold War since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

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Cook reported from Brussels. Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

EU leaders, who are exasperated by Britain’s Brexit melodrama, will only grant the extension if May can win the U.K. Parliament’s approval next week for her twice-rejected Brexit deal. Otherwise, the U.K. is facing a chaotic “no-deal” departure from the bloc within days, or a much longer delay that May says she will not allow while she is in power.

May, who has spent two and a half years trying to lead Britain out of the EU, said it was “a matter of great personal regret” that she had to seek a delay to Brexit.

In a televised statement from 10 Downing St., May said she shared the frustration felt by many Britons who have “had enough” of endless Brexit debates and infighting — though she did not accept a role in causing it. Instead, she blamed Parliament for the deadlock, and warned that if lawmakers did not back her deal it would cause “irreparable damage to public trust.”

“It is high time we made a decision,” May said.

In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, May acknowledged that the Brexit process “clearly will not be completed before 29 March, 2019” — the date fixed in law two years ago for Britain’s departure.

May asked to delay Britain’s withdrawal until June 30, and said she would set out her reasons to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Her longshot plan is to hold a third vote in Parliament on her deal next week, then use the EU-granted extension to pass the legislation needed for an orderly departure from the EU.

“As prime minister I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30,” May told the House of Commons — a hint she could quit if Britain is forced to accept a longer pause.

Tusk said he thought a short delay to Brexit “will be possible, but it would be conditional on a positive vote on the withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons.”

May’s request — and Tusk’s response — leaves Britain and the bloc facing Brexit uncertainty right up to the deadline for departure. Withdrawing without a deal could mean huge disruptions for businesses and U.K. residents, as well as those in the 27 remaining EU countries.

“Even if the hope for a final success may seem frail, even illusory, and although Brexit fatigue is increasingly visible and justified, we cannot give up seeking until the very last moment a positive solution,” Tusk said in Brussels.

Tusk made clear what other EU leaders have long hinted: The EU is unwilling to give Britain more time unless the government can find a way out of the Brexit impasse.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that “if the (EU) Council is to decide on extending the deadline for Britain, then we would like to know: Why, why, why?”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a delay could only be granted if May guaranteed that its purpose “is to finalize the ratification of the deal already negotiated.”

EU leaders are united in saying that the divorce deal it spent more than a year and a half negotiating with Britain can’t be renegotiated.

But the deal has twice been rejected twice by hefty margins in Britain’s Parliament, amid opposition from pro-Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers.

May had planned to try again this week to get the agreement approved, until the speaker of the House of Commons ruled that she can’t ask Parliament to vote on the deal again unless it is substantially changed.

May told Tusk that despite the ruling “it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.” She’s likely to do that next week — within days or hours of Britain’s scheduled departure — by arguing that circumstances have changed and the speaker’s bar on a third vote no longer applied.

But she faces a struggle to overturn the huge margins of defeat for her deal in previous votes in January and last week.

Tusk did not say whether the EU would be willing to grant a long delay to Brexit if Britain changed course and abandoned May’s deal for a new approach.

British opposition politicians, and pro-EU members of May’s Conservative government, have urged a longer extension, saying a delay of just a few months could leave the country once again facing a no-deal Brexit this summer.

They want to commit to a close post-Brexit economic relationship with the bloc to ease disruption for businesses and citizens.

Opposition Labour Party lawmaker Angela Eagle said May should “stop banging her head against the brick wall of her defeated deal” and seek cross-party support for a new Brexit strategy.

But a shift to “soft Brexit” would infuriate the pro-Brexit wing of May’s divided party, and a long delay would require Britain to participate in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament.

May said postponing Brexit beyond June would result in Parliament spending “endless hours contemplating its navel on Brexit.”

Any delay that required Britain to take part in European parliamentary elections would be a major headache for the bloc. Britain’s seats already have been allocated to other countries to fill in the May election.

Britain believes it would not have to participate if it got a three-month delay, because the newly elected European parliament is not due to convene until July. Some EU officials take a different view and want any extension to end by May 23, the first day of the European elections.

The Brexit-fueled political chaos has drawn reactions ranging from sympathy to scorn at home and around the world. On its front page Wednesday, the Brexit-backing Daily Mail newspaper bemoaned the time since the referendum as “1,000 lost days.”

Juncker said Britain’s Parliament needed to decide whether it would approve the only deal that is on the table.

“If that doesn’t happen, and if Great Britain does not leave at the end of March, then we are, I am sorry to say, in the hands of God,” he said. “And I think even God sometimes reaches a limit to his patience.”

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Cook reported from Brussels. Raf Casert in Brussels, Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Danica Kirka in London and Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.

With just 50 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU and with mounting concerns about a potentially chaotic Brexit, Tusk, who chairs meetings of EU leaders, also appeared to dash any British hopes that the bloc would soon reopen discussions over the Brexit deal that was overwhelmingly rejected by U.K. lawmakers last month.

“I have been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of plan how to carry it out safely,” Tusk told reporters after talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29 — the first time a country has ever done so. British Prime Minister Theresa May is due in Brussels on Thursday with what she says is a parliamentary mandate to re-open the draft agreement, sealed after 18 months of intense and highly technical negotiations.

“The EU 27 is not making any new offer,” Tusk said, adding that the legally binding withdrawal agreement sealing the divorce, which May negotiated and backed vociferously, cannot be renegotiated.

Tusk and Varadkar underlined that preparations are being intensified for a ‘no-deal’ scenario under which Britain would leave without an agreement; a possibly disastrous development that could inflict heavy economic and political damage in the U.K. and the EU alike.

“A sense of responsibility also tells us to prepare for a possible fiasco,” Tusk said.

May is signaling she will seek changes to the deal rather than the outright removal of the controversial Irish border provision, which has so alarmed many Brexiters in the U.K. Parliament.

The so-called backstop is designed to preserve the open border between Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland in light of the fact that May has insisted that the U.K. does not remain either in the European single market or the customs union.

The border area was a flashpoint on the island of Ireland during decades of conflict, and the free flow of people and goods across the frontier underpins the peace agreement of 1998.

“We will not gamble with peace; or put a sell-by date on reconciliation. And this is why we insist on the backstop. Give us a believable guarantee for peace in Northern Ireland, and the U.K. will leave the EU as a trusted friend,” Tusk said.

Varadkar too insisted that the backstop must remain, describing it as a legal guarantee.

“I think events in London and the instability in British politics in recent weeks demonstrates exactly why we need a legal guarantee and solution that’s operable and that we know will work and last,” he said.

Warning that the EU parliament must also endorse Brexit before March 29, not just the British assembly, Varadkar held out the possibility that their non-binding political declaration on future ties could be tweaked should London’s stance “evolve.”

During a speech Tuesday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, May restated her “unshakeable” commitment to avoiding a hard border and said she didn’t plan to remove the “insurance policy” entirely.

“What Parliament has said is that they believe there should be changes made to the backstop,” she said.

Tusk said he hopes she will bring to Brussels “a realistic suggestion on how to end the impasse.”

Varadkar, for his part, thinks that Tusk is likely to face some heat over coming days for his “special place in hell” comments.

“They will give you terrible trouble in the British press,” Varadkar appeared to say to Tusk as they shook hands after their comments to the press.

Lawless reported from London

The British government, struggling to break a political logjam over Brexit, released immigration plans that it said will “take back control” of the country’s borders — but which opponents warn will batter the economy by shutting out everyone but highly paid professionals.

The EU measures, announced a day after Britain ramped up its own no-deal planning, are intended to alleviate “major disruption” to people and businesses in case squabbling U.K. politicians fail to ratify a withdrawal agreement between Britain and the bloc.

European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis called the contingency plan “an exercise in limiting damage.”

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but it’s unclear whether lawmakers will approve the divorce agreement Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has negotiated with the bloc. May postponed a vote in Parliament last week because the deal faced heavy defeat. It has been rescheduled for mid-January, but opposition remains strong across the political spectrum.

Leaving without a deal risks plunging the British economy into recession and sparking chaos at the borders, as four decades of economic alignment and open markets evaporate.

The EU plan includes temporary one- to two-year measures to allow some U.K.-EU financial services to continue and a 12-month provision to keep planes flying between Britain and the bloc.

But Dombrovskis stressed that the measures “cannot replicate the benefits of the withdrawal agreement, and certainly it cannot replicate the benefits of EU membership.”

Britain’s no-deal preparations include putting 3,500 soldiers on standby, chartering boats to bring in goods and stockpiling medicines. The government called them sensible precautions, but opposition politicians accused May of trying to scare lawmakers into supporting her Brexit deal.

“No-deal would be a disaster for our country and no responsible government would ever allow it,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said.

Most members of Parliament dislike both May’s Brexit deal and the prospect of leaving the EU without an agreement, but they are deeply divided about what to do instead, and the country’s political debate has grown increasingly bad-tempered as Brexit day approaches.

Corbyn was forced to deny calling May a “stupid woman” in the House of Commons on Wednesday, after he was caught appearing to mutter the insult during a fiery debate.

“I did not use the words ‘stupid woman’ about the prime minister or anyone else, and am completely opposed to the use of sexist or misogynist language in absolutely any form at all,” Corbyn said.

In a bid to regain some of its vanished political momentum, the British government published long-awaited plans for a post-Brexit immigration system that will end the automatic right of EU citizens to live in the U.K.

“We’re going to bring an end to free movement,” May said. “We will do that in a way that enables us to reduce net migration but enables us to ensure that the brightest and best can be attracted to the United Kingdom.”

She said that “in the future coming here will be based on your contribution, not on the country you come from.”

The government proposal places no limit on the number of well-paid, skilled immigrants who can settle in Britain, but puts curbs on “low-skilled” workers, who would only be able to get one-year working visas.

The government plan suggests setting a salary threshold that immigrants will have to meet in order to be given the right to settle in Britain.

An independent body advising the government has suggested 30,000 pounds ($38,000) a year — above the median U.K. wage and more than the starting salary for nurses, paramedics, junior doctors and many other professions.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers — an umbrella group for Britain’s state-funded health care system — said the health sector was “deeply concerned” about the proposal.

“High skills does not equal high pay,” she told the BBC.

The government said the exact salary threshold would be decided after public consultation.

The rules will not apply to more than 3 million EU citizens currently living in Britain. The government has said they can stay, even if the U.K. leaves the bloc without an agreement on future relations. The EU, in its no-deal plans, urged member states to extend the same right to more than 1 million resident British nationals.

Immigration was a major factor behind Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU, and May has made ending free movement and cutting net immigration by more than half to below 100,000 people a year her key Brexit goals.

But that has put her at odds with many business leaders. Big chunks of Britain’s economy, from agriculture to health care, have come to depend on European workers, more than 1 million of whom have moved to Britain in the last 15 years. Businesses fear that choking off the flow of lower-skilled workers could lead to acute employee shortages.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, a fierce opponent of Brexit, said the immigration proposals would “devastate” the Scottish economy,

“It’s beyond me that any U.K. prime minister would want to have as her legacy turning the U.K. inwards and making it less open and welcoming to people from the rest of the world,” Sturgeon said.

The longer the political impasse drags on, the more worried British businesses get. The country’s five leading business groups said in a rare joint statement that businesses “have been watching in horror” as the prospect of a disorderly Brexit grew more likely.

Organizations including the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry urged lawmakers to “return to their constituencies over Christmas and talk to their local business communities.”

“We hope that they will listen and remember that when they return to Parliament, the future course of our economy will be in their hands,” the groups said.

Cook reported from Brussels. Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

Belgian soldiers shot a man dead in downtown Brussels on Friday evening after he attacked the troops with a knife in what prosecutors described as a “terror attack.”

Spokeswoman Esther Natus of the federal prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism investigations, said the man twice shouted “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” as he ran at the soldiers.

“We do consider it a terror attack,” Natus said. She declined to identify the man or confirm whether he was known to police, saying only that “the suspect is dead” and one of the soldiers was slightly wounded.

Brussels Mayor Philippe Close said three soldiers came under attack and one had been hospitalized.

Federal Police spokesman Jonathan Pfunde also confirmed some details of the incident and said the attacker had been “neutralized.”

Belgium’s anti-terror crisis center tweeted that the situation was “under control.”

“All our support is with our soldiers,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said via Twitter. “Our security services remain on alert. We are following the situation closely.”

Associated Press television images showed that police sealed off a main street near the Grand Place, a central square that is a popular tourist site.

A man who lives near where the incident took place on Boulevard Emile Jacquemain said he saw the attacker lying in the street in the aftermath.

“I live right in front of the station. It was already blocked by police at the scene and there was a man lying on the ground. The police said he had been shot by soldiers,” said Thomas da Silva Rosa, a public affairs consultant.

“He was lying on the ground, appeared dead,” he told AP.

Belgium has been on high alert since suicide bombers killed 32 people in attacks March 22, 2016, on Brussels’ main airport and subway system.

Soldiers and extra police have been deployed at public buildings and around large gatherings for more than a year.