The European Parliament

saltire shield'Scotland's interests in Europe have been better represented by Franz Fischer (EU farm commissioner), the Germans, Dutch, Spanish and Irish, than they have been by the Scottish Office.'
SNP North-east Scotland MEP, Allan Macartney on the Scottish Quality Beef export ban.		Lion Rampant

Groups In The European Parliament

As at Westminster, the different MEPs are organised into political groups according to their different ideology and/or party affiliation. The minimum number of MEPs required to form an official political group is 29 if the members come from a single member state, 23 if they come from two, 18 if they come from three and 14 if they come from four or more member states. No MEP can be a member of more than one political group, but no MEP is under an obligation to be part of a political group either. However, membership of a group gives advantages in the allocation of speaking time and offices.

MEPs may be either full or associate members of a group. Associate members are not bound by the manifesto/platform of the pan-European political party behind the group, usually because their national party is not a member of this pan-European political party. This difference is irrelevant as far as internal Parliamentary procedures are concerned.

Despite having renounced socialism, in the European parliament the British Labour MEPs still belong to the Party of European Socialists.

The Scottish National Party were unaligned until 1994. Betweeen 1994 and 1999 they were members of the European Radical Alliance. In 1999 they joined The Greens/European Free Alliance.

The Tories belong to the European People's Party and European Democrats group (EPP-ED). Tory MEPs were in the former European Democrats group during Lord Plumb's presidency; in 1992 they followed their former European Democrats group partners, and joined the EPP (formerly Christian Democrats) group.

The LibDems are members of the new Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

The compositions of parliamentary groups can be found on the web site of the European Parliament

European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and Euro pean Democrats (EPP-ED)

Since 1999, this has been the largest group in the parliament. Originally founded as the Christian Democrat group in the Common Assembly of the European Coal & Steel Community, the group includes the two Tory members from Scotland

Party of European Socialists (PES)

This group was the largest in the parliament from 1994 until 1999 but lost ground, not only in the UK, but througout most of Europe in the 1999 elections. It is now the second largest group in the parliament.

Alliance of Liberals & Democrats for Europe (ALDE)

This is a new group created in July 2004 which includes the Scottish Lib Dem MEP.

The Greens/European Free Alliance

This is the fourth largest in the 626-member Parliament, after the Liberals, Socialists and Christian Democrats. It includes the European Greens, the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru in Wales, various autonomous parties in Spain , and the Flemish nationalist party Volksunie from Belgium.
Ian Hudghton of the SNP is First Vice President of te Greens/EFTA Group and President of the EFA group.

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