The political groups are vital to the running of the European Parliament: they decide what issues will be dealt with at the plenary, they can also table amendments to reports that will be voted on during the plenary and before the session they decide which position the political group will take. However, no member can be forced to vote in a particular way. 

"Group co-ordinators" play an important role, providing a point of contact within their political groups for specific policy issues and organising support within committees when it comes to voting on reports. 

Each political group appoints a chairman, or in some cases two. The influence of the groups is reflected in the fact that they put forward the candidates for all the important posts including the EP president, vice-presidents, committee chairmen and the quaestors.

Increasing Europe's competitiveness through more investment on research and lifelong learning is just one aim of the European People's Party - European Democrats - the largest political group in the Parliament.

With 278 MEPs from all 27 states of the Union the party is an important force on the European political landscape. In the wider political context 10 of the EU Prime Ministers as well as the President of the European Commission come from this political family. In terms of nationalities the largest bloc in the Group is the German delegation with 49 MEPs whilst the smallest are Denmark and Estonia with just one apiece.
 
To give its full name, the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, or EPP-ED as its more commonly known, brings together Christian Democrat, Conservative and other centre right parties and MEPs from across Europe. The group has been the largest in the Parliament since 1999, but was founded in 1953, when the Christian Democrat group sat in the assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community - the very first parliamentary institution. It enjoys a comfortable majority over its main rival the Socialist Group, which has 217 members from 25  Member states.
 
The last European elections in 2004 - the first held with the 10 new countries from central and Eastern Europe - were a success for the group, which polled 38.11% of the vote. This was an improvement of 3 percentage points on their previous showing in 1999.
 
As the largest Group in Parliament the EPP-ED in entitled to the lion's share of the influential positions in Parliament. The President of the Parliament and 4 of the 14 Vice-Presidents come from this group. 

 
The leader of the group is Joseph Daul, is a Member of the European Parliament since 1999 and farmer by profession. Previously he was chairman of Parliament’s committee for agriculture and rural development. He comes from French region of Alsace, speaks fluently German and has two children. In April 2007 he will turn 60. For him, the fact that the EPP-ED group comprises Members from all 27 EU Member States “is testimony to the work the Group has dedicated to European reunification.  This dominance is not only numeric: in all the important votes our Group confirmed its positions without sectarianism and we have become essential on the European political scene because the citizens of Europe want it this way”.   

 
The sheer diversity of the parties represented from across Europe in the Parliament's political groups - and their respective traditions and domestic policies - mean that ideological cohesion in the groups and outright partisanship is less marked than in domestic parties.
 
This is reflected in the approach the EPP-ED group has adopted by trying to "build majorities on all important subjects" and "not neglect smaller groups," according to an EPP source. While key posts on special committees used to be shared between the two big groups now an effort is made to give the smaller groups a fair share.

Solidarity, sustainability and social justice are some of the principles common to the social democrat, socialist and labour members of the European Parliament. In order to strengthen their influence and gain real support for their proposals, MEPs belonging to Socialist Group began cooperating in the early stages of EU integration and now represent the second biggest group in the Parliament.

 

They took 27.19 % of the vote in the 2004 election, giving them 200 seats. Their members come from 25 EU countries and have places on all standing committees, with seven of their members chairing committees. Five of the current vice presidents and two quaestors also belong to the Socialist group.
 
The leader of the group is a German - Martin Schulz. He was elected to the position in 2004 but has been an MEP for 12 years. His role is essential for the proper running of the political group. He coordinates all the activities of the group, speaks for the Socialists and represents its position in the plenary.
 
Before the very first direct election to EP in 1979, the Socialists issued a European Election Manifesto with the group's political priorities and the group has kept up the practice.  The goals include economic growth, the fight against the poverty, social integration, security and the protection of environment. But with ongoing globalisation and rising unemployment it seems that the challenge of job creation is taking centre stage. Socialists find that unemployment is a millstone around the neck of social Europe.
 
The complexities of the problems that Europe has to face are sometimes very technical and hard for people to understand. Bringing the Union closer to citizens thus remains one of the major challenges for the Socialist group. "In a series of policy debates and decisions - enlargement, chemicals, the budget framework and even the appointment of the Commission - the Socialist Group has taken the lead on standing up for peoples' interests in shaping European laws," said Mr Schulz. These are all examples of areas where "Europe does listen to people."

With 106 MEPs from 22 countries, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) is Parliament’s third biggest political group. Determinedly federalist in outlook while respecting diversity, the group’s aim is to tilt the balance of power towards the political centre.

The division of responsibilities among the political groups has resulted in the ALDE chairing three parliamentary committees: Civil Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs; Fisheries; and Transport & Tourism. It also holds two of Parliament’s 14 Vice-Presidencies. When it comes to the size of the ALDE’s national delegations, the top three countries are led by Italy followed by the United Kingdom and France. Occupying the halfway point between the two “large” political groups and the smaller groups, the ALDE group is more than capable of ensuring that its distinctive voice is heard (but it is also often cast in the role of bridging the political divide).

Five Priorities for 2006

A UK MEP since 1994, the group’s leader, Graham Watson, underlines what it is that makes his group special: “Liberals and Democrats have a clear ideology; we know what kind of society we seek to create.” As a means of achieving the sort of society that it wants to see, the ALDE has set out five priorities for 2006:

1) Arguing for a long-term European budget which meets the needs and challenges of EU policies, particularly in the areas of scientific research and technological innovation.
2) Keeping up the pressure on Member States for implementing the reforms needed to promote economic growth and employment.
3) Encouraging all European initiatives aimed at improving the environment and guaranteeing long-term economic sustainability.
4) Winning back the confidence of European public opinion, so that in due course an open and honest debate on Europe’s constitutional future can be held.
5) Ensure that the EU acts in line with the values that it espouses, especially with regard to third country relationships. 

Vision and Leadership

In Graham Watson’s view, the 21st Century’s biggest challenges (population growth and migration, climate change and international crime) can only be met at a supra-national level, which requires greater awareness on the part of European institutions. As he says: “The Commission has given us a "Plan D" for dialogue. But we need a "Plan V for vision" and a "Plan L for Leadership."

The ALDE’s leader clearly set out his group’s vision when he said that: "The ALDE group seeks to promote the values of liberty, justice, community and the rule of law, both at home and abroad. The forces of Liberals and Democrats also combine to deliver the benefits of economic dynamism with an agenda for social justice.”

The ALDE group’s recent political battles have focused on opening up the market for services to greater competition and for an end to the practice established by some European institutions of taking decisions behind closed doors. In a nutshell, it’s a stance which blends liberalism with democracy.

As is clear from its name the Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) Group believes in a Europe of nation states allowing governments and countries to co-ordinate and co-operate in building a more inclusive and stable Europe based on diversity. It strongly supports subsidiarity, which it believes is essential for the fair distribution of power between the EU, nations and local authorities and in the best interests of the citizen.

 

 

Although they began by highlighting purely ecological issues, the Greens have increasingly branched out into the political mainstream in recent years. During the recent debates on the services directive their co-President Daniel Cohn-Bendit summed up their philosophy when he said "at a time when the EU Commission is pursuing an increasingly pro-industry agenda, the Greens/EFA group is vigorously fighting to ensure the right balance is struck between economic reforms and social interests”.

Comparatively speaking, this is a young political group. The very first ecological parties emerged in 1970s and it took them another decade to turn their support into real political power. It was not until 1984 that the Greens started to coordinate their activities on the European level. In July 1999 they came together with the European Free Alliance, which draws together political parties fighting for democracy and the right to self-determination for the stateless nations and regions of Europe, to give birth to a new political grouping - the Greens/EFA.
 
The group comprises 42 MEPs from 13 countries. It is the German delegation with 13 MEPs that has the most members while on the other hand Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Latvia all have one representative in the group. French MEP Hélène Flautre, chair of the Human Rights subcommittee comes from the group as well as six vice- chairs of other committees. Parliament’s third Vice-President Gérard Onesta is a Green MEP.

 

The group's representatives are vice-chairmen of four standing committees and one vice-president of the Parliament also comes from its camp. Unlike most of the other groups, there are two co-Presidents of the Greens/EFA so the gender balance is always guaranteed.

 
With its ongoing participation in European politics, the group has extended its interests beyond topics directly linked to the environment. The current party says it aims to build a society respectful of fundamental human rights and environmental justice, to increase freedom within the world of work, to deepen democracy by decentralisation and encourage direct participation of people in the decision-making process and finally to undertake economic and social reforms that will make development sustainable for humans and the natural world.
 
Mr Cohn-Bendit's colleague as co-President of the Group, Monica Frassoni, recently summarized the group’s activities by saying that “the Greens try to prevent the EU from pursuing short-sighted policies, which sacrifice the environment and social justice by pandering to narrow lobbying interests."

The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) is the sixth largest group in the European Parliament with 41 MEPs - and acts as a forum for cooperation of left-wing parties. The Group says it wants to build "Another Europe: a social, peaceful, democratic, feminist, ecological Europe in solidarity with all the peoples of the world."

 

As a political group GUE/NGL was established at the beginning of the fourth parliamentary term in 1994. But, before this date parties to the left of the Socialist Group had worked together in other formations. With the fourth enlargement of the EU to Austria, Finland and Sweden in January 1995, representatives from leftist parties in the Nordic countries joined the group. Consequently, the group now combines two subgroups: the European United Left and the Nordic Green Left.
 
In the last EP elections, June 2004, almost 9 million people voted for GUE/NGL parties. At present the party has 41 MEPs from 14 Member States. In terms of size the German and Italian national delegations are most important with seven MEPs respectively, followed by the Czech delegation with six MEPs. Other delegations vary between one and four MEPs. GUE/NGL member Helmut Markov, chair of the committee on international trade and Parliament’s Vice-President Luisa Morgantini.

Opposition to the European Constitution and resisting the "centralisation and bureaucratisation of Europe" are the main aims of this relatively new group in the Parliament. Formed out of the old "Europe of Democracies and Diversities" Group (EDD) in July 2004 following some gains in the European elections, the group comprises around 3% of the Parliament with 23 MEPs from 9 countries. They describe themselves variously as "EU-critics, eurosceptics and eurorealists".

A key platform of the Group is their opposition to the draft EU Constitution. They have tried to exploit the political uncertainty over the future of the Treaty following its rejection in referenda in France and the Netherlands in mid-2005
 
The biggest bloc in the Group is the UK Independence Party (UKIP) with 10 members. While UKIP explicitly campaigns on a platform in favour of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, other members of the Group are reformists who accept membership of the Union for their country but would like to see "less centralisation, less erosion of national sovereignty and more power retained by national parliaments." Given these diverging views, the group respects the freedom of its national delegation to vote as they wish. They are jointly led by UKIP  leader Nigel Farage MEP and Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde of the JuniBevægelsen - Mod Unionen Group.
 
D for Democracy - for and against the Constitution
 
As anyone who listens to debates on the Constitution will know, the Group has been very adept at keeping itself in the media spotlight - for example they have frequently tried to "destabilise" some representatives of the Member States or of the European Commission when they have addressed the Parliament. In 2005 they launched their "Plan D tour bus" that will follow Margot Wallström, the European Commissioner in charge of communication, around Europe as she holds her own "Plan D" seminars on the state of the European Constitution and the future of Europe.
 
For this relatively young political amalgam, the challenge will be to build on the success of their electoral breakthrough in 2004 and make further gains in European elections in 2009.