y Kate Holman in Brussels
A left-right “coalition” between the two largest political groups in the European Parliament looks increasingly possible in advance of the crucial first Strasbourg session on July 14 when MEPs will elect parliamentary leaders.
Many moderate MEPs are anxious to prevent the far-right and avowedly anti-European Union parties which won seats in at last month’s European elections from sabotaging their work over the next five years.
A “technical agreement” between the centre-right European People’s Party, with
264 seats, and the newly constituted centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in Europe, which has around
183 MEPs, would give them an overall majority and allow them to secure leading parliamentary jobs. The deal would not include political trade-offs, leaving both sides free to pursue policy priorities.
An earlier attempt to form a right-wing majority coalition combining the EPP, the liberal ALDE group and the British Tories’ new European Conservative and Reformists, fell apart when the ALDE declined to work MEPs not “committed to the European agenda”.
The former centre-left Party of European Socialists, weakened by the election results, is taking a pragmatic approach. The group has changed its name and broadened its identity in order to absorb MEPs from the Italian Partito Democratico.
If the accord goes ahead, the EPP and PASDE will share the parliamentary presidency over the coming five years. Former Polish Prime Minister, conservative MEP Jerzy Buzek, is likely to take the chair until the end of 2011 – the first eastern European to fill the post.
Meanwhile, Britain’s 13 UKIP MEPs have thrown in their lot with the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian Lega Nord to form the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group
by Kate Holman in Brussels
A left-right “coalition” between the two largest political groups in the European Parliament looks increasingly possible in advance of the crucial first Strasbourg session on July 14 when MEPs will elect parliamentary leaders.
Many moderate MEPs are anxious to prevent the far-right and avowedly anti-European Union parties which won seats in at last month’s European elections from sabotaging their work over the next five years.
A “technical agreement” between the centre-right European People’s Party, with
264 seats, and the newly constituted centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in Europe, which has around
183 MEPs, would give them an overall majority and allow them to secure leading parliamentary jobs. The deal would not include political trade-offs, leaving both sides free to pursue policy priorities.
An earlier attempt to form a right-wing majority coalition combining the EPP, the liberal ALDE group and the British Tories’ new European Conservative and Reformists, fell apart when the ALDE declined to work MEPs not “committed to the European agenda”.
The former centre-left Party of European Socialists, weakened by the election results, is taking a pragmatic approach. The group has changed its name and broadened its identity in order to absorb MEPs from the Italian Partito Democratico.
If the accord goes ahead, the EPP and PASDE will share the parliamentary presidency over the coming five years. Former Polish Prime Minister, conservative MEP Jerzy Buzek, is likely to take the chair until the end of 2011 – the first eastern European to fill the post.
Meanwhile, Britain’s 13 UKIP MEPs have thrown in their lot with the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian Lega Nord to form the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group
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