Irish row over UEN allegiance

Date: 15/07/04

A SPLIT has emerged in the Irish Fianna Fáil party after its MEPs renewed their traditional alliance with the Union of Europe of the Nations (UEN) in the European Parliament.

Fianna Fáil, the senior party in Ireland's coalition government, is the party of Bertie Ahern, Ireland's prime minister, and of Brian Cowen, the foreign minister.

The number of Fianna Fáil MEPs fell from six to four in last month's European elections and it was thought that the failure of Gerry Collins, a UEN vice-president, to win re-election, would make a change of group allegiance easier. Ahern and Cowen were in favour of moving to a larger grouping and away from some of the post-fascist elements in the UEN. Europe Minister Dick Roche was also among those urging a move to a "more mainstream" grouping.

Roche said the future of UEN had been put into doubt by the failure of a number of members to be re-elected, including its former leader, French right-wing MEP Charles Pasqua.

"The UEN served us well in the past but the sands are shifting in the Parliament and my view is that it would be more appropriate for us to be in a more mainstream grouping," he said.

A move to the centre-right European People's Party was ruled out because Fine Gael, the main opposition party and Fianna Fáil's bitter rival, has long been a member of the EPP-ED group.

Fianna Fáil had been expected to join the new Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) but newly re-elected Fianna Fáil deputy, Brian Crowley, defended the decision to renew its alliance with the UEN, saying: "I believe UEN can become a mainstream group. We considered joining ALDE but decided it would bring us no benefits."

Another Fianna Fáil member, Sean Ó Neachtain, agreed, saying: "ALDE will be dominated by Liberals and I would be very concerned about their attitudes to certain issues, like abortion."

Crowley and Ó Neachtain take a conservative line on abortion.

The former had hoped to control the UEN but has become only co-president, alongside Italy's Christina Muscardini.

The group now has 28 MEPs, making it Parliament's sixth biggest political group. Its membership includes deputies from Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance in Italy, the Polish Law and Justice party as well as several from Latvia, Portugal and Denmark.

• The proportion of women represented in Parliament remains low at around 30%, slightly less than in the previous legislature.

Sweden is the only member state that elected more female than male members - 11 of its 19 deputies are women, while Cyprus and Malta both failed to elect any females.

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