BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's main governments suffered stinging rebuffs in European Parliament elections on Sunday on a record low turnout aggravated by voter apathy in the EU's new eastern member states.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) crashed to their worst result since World War II while French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's center-right UMP party suffered its second electoral defeat in four months.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's ruling Labour Party was punished by voters for its active role in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party appeared to suffer a milder anti-war backlash.

Reflecting indifference or disenchantment with EU institutions seen as remote and elitist, well under half of the nearly 350 million eligible voters bothered to cast ballots in the world's biggest transnational election.

"Regrettably, Europe is too absent from European elections in east and west," outgoing parliament president Pat Cox said.

A surge in support for Britain's UK Independence Party, which favors leaving the EU, and for right-wing populists in Poland, was set to raise the number of euroskeptics in the EU legislature, but they lost ground in France, Austria and Denmark.

Cox said euroskeptics and right-wing nationalists would make up at most 10 to 15 percent of the parliament, which would remain overwhelmingly pro-European.

Turnout in the four-day vote was projected at 44.2 percent across the 25-nation EU, compared to 49.8 percent in 1999.

It was dragged down by a participation of just 26 percent in the 10 mainly ex-communist east European newcomers, voting for the first time in a European poll after joining on May 1.

The humiliations for Germany's SPD, which polled just 21.4 percent, and France's UMP, heading for a mere 16.5 percent, reflected anger at economic stagnation, unemployment and painful welfare reforms driven by EU policies.

CENTER-RIGHT WIN

The German opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party triumphed with 46.5 percent and will dominate what is set to remain parliament's biggest group, the center-right European People's Party (EPP), with 269 of the 732 seats.

"Today has been a disaster for the government, particularly for the Social Democrats, and especially for the chancellor," a jubilant CDU leader Angela Merkel said.

France's opposition Socialists recorded their best ever European result, with more than 30 percent and should be the largest contingent in the second biggest parliamentary group, the Party of European Socialists, with about 199 seats.

"People use elections in many countries to sanction their governments, with domestic issues rather than European- dominating debates," said John Palmer, director of the Brussels-based European Policy Center think-tank.

The strongly integrationist Liberal Democrats were set to be the third largest group with about 66 seat, with the Greens fourth on about 39 seats.

It was not immediately clear what alliance would be formed to run parliament. Politicians said the Socialists and what is likely to be an enlarged Liberal group boosted by pro-European defectors from the center-right EPP were exploring a possible deal.

Two possible contenders for the key job of European Commission president -- Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker -- experienced contrasting fortunes on Sunday.

Verhofstadt's Flemish Liberals were humiliatingly outpolled by the far-right anti-immigrant Vlaams Blok in regional polls in Flanders, but he vowed his federal government would soldier on.

Juncker, a Christian Democrat and the EU's longest-serving head of government, was triumphally re-elected in the 450,000-strong Grand Duchy but has insisted he does not want the Brussels job despite widespread support among fellow EU leaders.

About 14,700 candidates contested the 732 seats in the increasingly powerful assembly, which has a major say on financial regulation, the EU's 100 billion euro ($120 billion) annual budget, and transport, labor and environmental rules.

In a bid to stir public excitement, candidates included a Czech porn queen, an Estonian supermodel, several sports stars, two astronauts and a Nobel prize winner.

Poland's ruling left suffered a beating at the hands of mainstream center-right parties in the vote, which was seen as a key test before general elections likely later this year.

The euroskeptic Self Defense party and League of Catholic Families beat the ruling Socialists into fifth place.

But two recently elected ruling parties, Spain's Socialists and Greece's New Democracy, defied the general anti-government trend. Spanish voters rewarded Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for pulling Spanish troops from Iraq.