Parliamentary poker
June 22, 2009
The move - long sought by British, Czech and Polish conservatives - now splits the largest European Parliament group, the center-right European People's Party (EPP).
The new faction, which brings together parties from Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Latvia and the Netherlands, is expected to voice more eurosceptic views than the EPP, which the group regards as "too federalist".
The new caucus, called the European Conservatives and Reformers, or ECR, wants fewer powers in the hands of EU bureaucrats and more decision-making delegated to member states.
The faction, the fourth largest in the European Parliament, may also enlarge further as talks with Romania, Bulgaria and Denmark progress.
For a group to be registered as an official caucus it needs a minimum of 25 deputies in the European Parliament drawn from at least seven different countries. Once recognized, it receives financial subsidies and is guaranteed seats on the Parliament's powerful political committees.
The ECR already has 55 MEPs, with 26 coming from Britain's Conservative Party under leader David Cameron, 15 from Poland's Law and Justice Party (PiS) supported by President Lech Kaczynski, and nine from the Czech Civic Democrats. Conservative parties from the other five countries are represented by one MEP each.
A Civic Democrat MEP, Jan Zahradil, said the grouping should provide a "new impulse" in the parliament where a majority of legislation is approved by what he called a "technical coalition" between Socialists and the EPP.
Strange Bedfellows
Political analysts say the new caucus brings together a group of strange bedfellows.
Cameron has come under fire in the liberal British press for joining up with what they see as populist parties, such as PiS, which oppose abortion and homosexuality, and favor state intervention in the economy, including subsidies for farmers.
Poland's Kaczynski has admitted that the group differed on many issues, but said they had agreed to act separately where national interests were concerned.
"We cannot passively accept ad hoc solutions all the time, while hoping our nations will not notice. This road leads nowhere," he said.
The new ECR caucus could spell trouble for the EPP, whose strongest adherents are the conservative heavyweights in Germany and France.
In the June 4-7 European Parliament election, the EPP won 267 seats in the 736-seat assembly to become the largest political group, ahead of the Socialists with 159 seats.
If the ECR's 55 seats, and possibly more soon, were to be subtracted from the EPP total this could undermine conservative clout on important issues, such as the Lisbon Treaty, EU budget allocations, expansion of the euro currency, or relations with Russia.
gb/dpa/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Nick Amies