Parliament's new anti-federalist group: A fragile coalition?[fr][de] 

The Tories' long-mooted departure from the EPP-ED group has finally become a reality, following months of negotiations across the continent led by the UK Conservatives (EurActiv 02/06/09). 

Leading Tories hailed the move as a significant evolution in the EU political landscape. Timothy Kirkhope MEP, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, said his party was "very excited about this important new development in European politics," which "will make a strong case for a centre/centre-right but non-federalist future for the EU".

The Prague Manifesto: A new 'eurorealism'

The new group's "non-federalism" has been codified in a declaration signed by all members, the so-called 'Prague Manifesto'. While the declaration is careful to avoid specific issues that could lead to disputes between members, the 10 principles stress one basic message: "the urgent need to reform the EU on the basis of Eurorealism, openness, accountability and democracy". 

"The one thing that all of the members of the grouping have in common is that they believe in a non-federalist future for the European Union," the UK's Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois told EurActiv in a phone interview from Westminster. 

Weak political formation? 

However, while Francois said he was "very confident" that the group was "going to prosper," leading EU commentators offered mixed assessments regarding the ECR's prospects of becoming a forceful opposition in the Parliament. 

Andrew Duff, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat MEPs, believes that the ECR's "bizarre cabal of ultra-Catholics from Poland and ultra-Calvinists from the Netherlands" will have a destabilising effect on the new group's effectiveness.

"It is certainly not in the British interest for the Tories to be moving from the political mainstream to the political margins," he claimed, adding: "I query the credo of this new group and look forward with interest to seeing the common political programme that they will now have to put together." 

Furthermore, while the ECR's ranks will be dominated by MEPs from the Tories (26 MEPs) and the Polish Law and Justice party (PiS: 15 MEPs), six of the group's nine national delegations consist of a single MEP. 

In other words, should just three of those six MEPs at any point become disillusioned with the group's direction and threaten to leave, they would effectively hold veto power over the groups' continued existence (a group requires MEPs from at least seven member states). 

As a result, the Tories will arguably need to guarantee these six MEPs positions of influence in the new group. 

A leading EPP source, speaking to EurActiv on condition of anonymity, said that the ECR looked "a fragile coalition," arguing that "keeping the six single party members happy might prove to be too much hard work" for the Tories. "I don't see how they will have sufficient patronage powers to deal out, for instance, committee chairs to these six MEPs".

"This is ironic," he added, "considering it's a well-known fact that the EPP's generosity to the Tories in this area in the previous Parliament was in fact one of the primary examples of the benefits for the Tories in remaining part of the EPP".

Mark Francois would not be drawn on the group's possible instability in relying so heavily on single MEPs. "As you know, the threshold for forming a group was raised. Well, we've beaten the requirements both by the number of MEPs and by the number of countries."

Moreover, Francois added that while "we have announced the core of our new group today, [...] discussions are still continuing and we are hopeful that we can find more MEPs from other countries before the European Parliament formally sits on 14 July".

He would not disclose who those other MEPs might be, saying that "discussions are still ongoing".

Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie, who co-edits the influential Conservative Home website, said: "This is an historic moment - the federalist cartel in the Parliament has been broken. At long last there is a serious opposition to the idea of 'ever closer union' within the European Parliament."

He added that "the members of the 'ECR' appear to be Eurosceptic, transatlantic in outlook and socially conservative".

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of Poland's Law and Justice party (PiS), said of the ECR's members that "of course we differ on many issues and the deal is that we act separately where national interests are concerned. But we agree on some basic issues, among them the fact that we have to take a closer look at EU affairs and its future".

Andrew Duff, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat MEPs, said that "it is indeed strange for British Conservatives to find themselves trapped in a bizarre cabal of ultra-Catholics from Poland and ultra-Calvinists from the Netherlands." 

He went on to claim that "it is certainly not in the British interest for the Tories to be moving from the political mainstream to the political margins," adding: "I query the credo of this new group and look forward with interest to seeing the common political programme that they will now have to put together."

Likewise, Duff's colleague Edward Davey,  the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, argued that "this announcement confirms that the Tories have left the mainstream of European politics and joined forces with a rag-bag of parties with extreme views. The Conservatives have opted to throw away influence in Europe in favour of ideological isolationism".

The Tories' Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois, who alongside Tory deputy leader William Hague was instrumental in criss-crossing Europe to bring the ECR partners on board, told EurActiv: "We have announced the core of our new group today, but discussions are still continuing and we are hopeful that we can more MEPs from other countries before the European Parliament formally sits on 14 July".

"I'm very confident, now that this group has been launched, that it's actually going to prosper," he concluded, adding that "we've also announced with it a new set of principles. The one thing that all of the members of the grouping have in common is that they believe in a non-federalist future for the European Union".