Greens and Liberals win battle for allies

Date: 01/07/1999

By Gareth Harding
THE European Parliament's Green and Liberal Groups are set to emerge as the main victors from the frantic race to secure the support of smaller political parties following last month's Euro-elections.

The Greens are expected to strike a deal with the ten 'regional' MEPs from Spain and the UK, bumping the group's numbers up to 48. This would put it neck and neck with the Liberal Group and increase its bargaining power when the assembly's key posts are divided up at the new Parliament's first plenary session later this month.

The only stumbling-block is over the name of the new party. The freshly elected members, who include Welsh and Scottish nationalists, Basque separatists and regionalists from Catalonia and the Canary Islands, insist that it must have a regionalist ring to it, but the two sides are still locked in talks over what this should be.

As well as a new name, the Greens are to get two new leaders, replacing Magda Aelvoet who stood down at the elections. The charismatic leader of the French Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, has said he is not interested in the post, leaving the path open for the popular Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala and newly elected Dutch member Joost Lagendijk to take over the reins of the party.

The Liberals, who were the third largest group in the outgoing Parliament, are likely to hold on to this position after securing the support of the Democrat Party in Italy last week.

The six new members, who include the Mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli and 'clean hands' prosecutor Antonio di Pietro, will increase the Liberal Group's numbers to 49, and this could rise still further to 57 if Emma Bonino's Radical Party joins the group.

Liberal leader Pat Cox, who now seems almost certain to remain head of the group, said that the addition of the six Italian MEPs not only increased the strength of the group but also offered a "strategic link" with the founder of the Democrats, incoming European Com-mission President Romano Prodi.

Over the past week, Cox has also been in talks with the Christian Democrats aimed at forging an informal coalition of centre-right parties to break the stranglehold of the once-dominant Socialists in the Parliament.

Meanwhile, the 36 UK Conservatives look increasingly likely to stay within the European People's Party under a compromise plan which would see them retaining a loose affiliation with the Parliament's largest group in return for the Christian Democrats' agreeing to tone down their federalist rhetoric.

The agreement could pave the way for a new group to emerge to the right of the EPP consisting of Charles Pasqua's Gaullists, the French hunters and fishers party, Eurosceptics from the UK and Denmark, and possibly Italy's Alleanza Nazionale.

Feature on the composition of Political Groups in the EP following the June 1999 elections.