Pöttering – the EPP is not jumping into bed with Borrell’s Socialists

By Dana Spinant

Date: 31/03/05

Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, has denied that he is seeking to form a "legislative coalition" with the Socialists.

The German MEP who leads the European People's Party (EPP-ED) group in the Parliament said that the agreement with the Party of European Socialists (PES) on sharing the presidency of the Parliament was still only a "technical deal".

Pöttering is expected to take over from the Socialist Josep Borrell as president of the Parliament in 2007, half-way through the Parliamentary term, under a power-sharing deal between the assembly's two biggest groups.

"The agreement with the Socialists is really a technical deal," he said. "It involves no other mutual commitment, no coalition and no further agreement. There is no formal linkage between the technical agreement and the vote of the Socialists," said Pöttering in an interview with European Voice.

His denial came amid reports from sources within the EPP-ED that he had decided to negotiate compromise amendments with the Socialists on the EU's agenda for economic reform.

The support of Parliament's third largest group, the Liberal-Democrat ALDE, would have been sufficient for the EPP-ED to adopt a strong Lisbon Agenda resolution, his critics say, but according to one of his members, he opted for a watered-down version of the resolution that could win the backing of the Socialists.

Pöttering said: "The Socialists decided in the end to support the Lisbon resolution, because I think that they realised that to be always in opposition to the Commission will not help either the Socialists or the Commission. And so the biggest parties, both us and the Socialists, are behind the main policy objectives of the Commission."

Pöttering admitted that the two rapporteurs, Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP-ED) and Harlem Desir (PES) "co-operated in the end and worked on compromise amendments". "But there is no direct or indirect link with the question of the election of the president of Parliament," he added.

Sources from Parliament's smaller parties say that things may change by January 2007 when the next president is to be elected. The Liberals have tried to woo the Socialists to make an alliance to share the presidency of the Parliament and thus exclude the EPP-ED. The ranks of the Socialists and Liberals are to be reinforced on 1 January 2007, when Bulgaria and Romania are set to join the EU. The EPP-ED is likely to receive proportionately fewer members following the accession of the two countries.

But Pöttering, who is expected to be his group's candidate for the presidency, said that he thought the technical deal with the Socialists would hold. "When our group makes a commitment, we expect from our partners that they respect this commitment, so I have no reason to question that," he said.

He admitted that the arrival of MEPs from the ten new member states had changed the way business was being done in Parliament. "I think that our group is not less coherent than before, but we need more time to find compromises, because we simply have more members. In addition, our colleagues from the new member states have a different cultural background."

The German MEP who leads the European People's Party (EPP-ED) group in the Parliament said that the agreement with the Party of European Socialists (PES) on sharing the presidency of the Parliament was still only a 'technical deal' and denied that he was seeking to form a 'legislative coalition' with the Socialists. Pöttering was expected to take over from the Socialist Josep Borrell as President of the Parliament in 2007, half-way through the Parliamentary term, under a power-sharing deal between the assembly's two biggest groups.