Parties weigh the odds as Parliament power is up for grabs

Date: 17/06/04

By Dana Spinant

WHO will hold the balance of power in the European Parliament is still wide open, as newly elected MEPs negotiate behind the scenes to decide the composition of political groups and party alliances.

As expected, no party achieved a clear majority in the wake of last weekend's elections in 25 member states and the new Parliament will take decisions based on shifting alliances.

The crucial unanswered question is whether Parliament's two biggest political groups, the centre-right European People's Party (EPP-ED) and the Socialists (PES) will make a pact to carve up the assembly's presidency between them.

A senior Socialist official told European Voice that his party is split on this.

“A faction wants to make an ideological alliance, a coalition with the Left forces, which would bring enough votes to achieve an absolute majority.

“But another part of the party says 'the EPP won the election, let's not try to circumvent them, because we will end up like last time, with no Socialist president of the Parliament',” the official said.

“Their argument is that by making a pact with the EPP, we will at least have a president for two-and-a-half years.”

(The last Parliament saw EPP-affiliated Nicole Fontaine share the presidency with outgoing chief Pat Cox, a Liberal.)

Under a PES deal with the EPP-ED, a Socialist would be the assembly's president in the first two-and-a-half years and an EPP-ED deputy (probably the group's president Hans-Gert Pöttering) would take over in the second half of the five-year legislature.

“A decision on this also depends on who is going to be the next leader of the Socialist group in Parliament,” the official added.

Before the elections, German deputy Martin Schulz was tipped to be the next Socialist group leader. However, due to his party's poor result in last Sunday's poll (Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's SPD had the worst electoral result since the Second World War), Schulz's candidature could be challenged by the more numerous French or Spanish members.

The French Socialists are against a deal with the EPP-ED and want, instead, to bring the European Left together.

“They may ask Schulz not to make a pact with the EPP as a condition for their support,” the official said.

However, the centre-right EPP-ED could also broker an agreement with the Liberals, continuing the alliance which brought Cox to the head of the assembly.

Under such a scenario, the EPP-ED and the Liberals would together muster 339 votes (367 are needed for an absolute majority in the 732-member assembly).

Unless the Liberals join forces with the new centrist party that is likely to emerge from the alliance of French and Italian federalist forces, this coalition may not have enough voting power to adopt laws under the co-decision procedure with the Council of Ministers. It would, however, suffice to elect a president. As concerns the centrist group, it is set to refuse to enter into a pact with the EPP-ED: European Commission President Romano Prodi's ten-strong Olive Tree coalition, whose members defected from the EPP-ED, will rule out an alliance with the group, of which Prodi's Italian rival Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia is a member.

Alternatively, a coalition of the Left (including the Socialists, Liberals and Prodi's centrist group, the Greens and the United Left) could muster some 378 votes.

“If we can avoid a grand coalition, we will do it,” one leading Socialist MEP said. “It would be better to have the forces of the Left and the centre united, instead of a technical alliance with the right.

“If we enter such an alliance, it would be anyway just to elect a president of the Parliament.

“But at this time, all configurations are possible,”

the MEP added.

A further question is whether Parliament's groups will form a political alliance that will also apply to the adoption of legislation and to the nomination of the next Commission president, or whether they will make a deal purely on the Parliamentary presidency.

“Now we'll see if we get to have a stable Parliamentary majority, like national assemblies have, to support a government, or whether we'll have shifting majorities for different legislative matters. I think we'll have the latter,” one EPP-ED insider said.

Article considers who will hold the balance of power in the European Parliament following the European Parliament Elections on 10-13 June 2004.