The new European Parliament - a Burson-Marsteller Insight

The leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage, has announced the creation of a new Eurosceptic Group entitled ‘Europe of Freedom and Democracy’ (EFD). The Group is an almost direct replacement for the Independence and Democracy (IND/DEM) Group, which was left with only a handful of members (mostly from UKIP) as a result of the elections. As such, the new Group also combines refugees from the old UEN Group and some non-attached members.

The Group will gather 30 MEPs from eight member states (and is therefore set to be the smallest of the established Groups). It will be dominated by the 13 MEPs from UKIP, and the nine members from the Italian Northern League (Lega Nord).

Like the new European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), its establishment will depend on a number of individual members or small Groups - making its continued existence somewhat precarious. The other members include two MEPs from each of the Greek Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) and the Danish People’s Party, and one MEP each from Mouvement Pour La France/Libertas, the True Finns party, the Dutch Christian Union and the Slovak National Party. Like the other Group leaders, Mr Farage said that his Group hoped to gain even more members in the run-up to the plenary session.The Group is right-wing, but more ‘populist’ than ‘extreme’, and Mr Farage has defended the formation by saying that “the Group is wholeheartedly opposed to racism, anti-Semitism or anything of that kind”. Indeed, notable absentees include the Austrian Freedom Party, the Geet Wilders’ Dutch Freedom Party and Vlaams Belang (Belgium).

The establishment of this Group puts the final nail in the coffin of the UEN, with its former members now scattered across a number of Groups: in addition to Lega Nord departure, the Italian National Alliance, formerly the UEN’s largest member-party, joined the EPP following its merger with Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party; Ireland’s Fianna Fáil has joined ALDE and the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party left to join the ECR.

Finally, the creation of the new Group brings a strong British angle to the Parliament’s influential Conference of Presidents (CoP): Mr Farage is set to lead the EFD, and a British Conservative - probably either the newly re-elected Tory delegation leader Timothy Kirkhope, or the more Eurosceptic Geoffrey van Orden - is likely to lead the ECR. Although British influence on legislative and committee issues may be diminished by the flight of the Conservatives to form a new Group, British Eurosceptics will have two of the seven seats at the CoP table and therefore a big say in debates on the Parliament’s agenda and processes (although votes take place on the basis of the size of the Groups, and so decisions will continue to be dominated by the EPP, Socialists and Democrats, and Liberals) .

Nina Prunier and David O’Leary