Debates between the political parties in the European Parliament to form the all-important political groups, on which depends importance Committee places and speaking rights, continue in Brussels this week.
The Alliance of Liberals & Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group, in which the UK’s Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder sits, is continuing negotiations with liberal-minded parties either newly elected to the European Parliament or no longer content with their existing groups.
It is now unlikely that ALDE will remain the third largest group in Strasbourg-based Parliament as the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, now led by London Tory MEP Syed Kamall, has expanded its numbers via the admittance of the controversial Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party. They also last week voted to admit the Alternative for Germany Party, against the wishes of David Cameron, and no doubt much to the annoyance of Angela Merkel, hardly helping the Prime Minister’s chances of getting his way as regards the Presidency of the European Commission.
Time is now fast running out for the political groups to form and Nigel Farage is struggling to meet the 7-Member State requirement for his Europe of Freedom & Democracy Group (to qualify as a political group in the European Parliament you must have at least 25 MEPs drawn from at least 7 Member States). This is after the French National Front’s Marine Le Pen took several Europe of Freedom & Democracy members for her new group, European Alliance for Freedom.
The Parliament will formally meet in Strasbourg for its first plenary session of the new parliamentary term from 14th-17th July, during which it was expected that it would vote on the European Council’s nomination for the Presidency of the Commission. However, with leading members of the European Council (including both the UK’s Prime Minister and Germany’s Chancellor) talking up setting an agenda for EU reform at the Council Summit on 26th-27th June, rather than focusing on individuals (i.e. individual nominees to the Commission Presidency) there may now be some possibility that the EP will not yet have a nomination from the Council on which to vote.
Without a doubt, the current furore over whether the Presidential candidate of the European People’s Party, former Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker, should be nominated by the Council to be voted on by the Parliament is the single greatest power struggle between the Member State Governments and the directly-elected European Parliament in recent memory. As with so many other issues at EU-level, the key to its resolution will be what Angela Merkel decides to do and how she justifies it, as she is currently facing enormous pressure in Germany to secure the nomination of her own party’s candidate, i.e. Mr Juncker.
* Matt J. McLaren stood as an MEP candidate for London in May’s European Election and was recently appointed Parliamentary Spokesperson for Enfield North. Matt maintains an online blog here.