Secret talks could lead to federal group of 30 MEPs

By Dana Spinant

Date: 26/02/04

ALL federalist roads were leading to Rome last weekend as, in addition to the Greens launching what they call the first ever genuine European party, a group of 30 MEPs secretly discussed in the Eternal City the creation of a federalist cluster in the Parliament.

The group, mostly Liberal Democrats and 'dissidents' from the European People's Party, (EPP-ED) held informal talks aimed at setting up a centre party of federalist-minded MEPs after next June's elections.

The creation of such a party, based on Romano Prodi's Margarita coalition (currently split in the Parliament between the EPP-ED and the Liberal Democrats) and the French centre-right UDF (Union pour la Democratie Française) is "well on its way" after the Rome meeting, UDF sources say.

It could also gather the Italian Popular Party (currently in the EPP), the Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC) and Belgium's Centre Démocrate Humaniste (CDH).

Sources say the modification of the EPP's statute on 10 March to accommodate a new agreement with the UK Conservatives - under which the Tories would enjoy more freedom to dissent from the party - risks disappointing a number of strongly pro-European EPP members. One insider declares it could result in up to 20 MEPs from smaller parties leaving the EPP.

"They gain the British Conservatives but they will lose others, French or Italians, who cannot stand the increasing mounting in power of the Tories in the party," one insider said.

Spanish MEP Iñigo Méndez de Vigo said such a political group "could be very marginal and very Christian-Democratic".

"I do not see many members of the EPP having an interest in joining such a group," Méndez de Vigo, a senior EPP member, said.

"And I would prefer those who want to leave to stay in the EPP to fight for their ideas from within the largest party, as they have done in the past," the Spaniard added.

MEPs from various existing European Parliament Political Groups are said to be discussing the possibility of creating an explicitly 'pro-federalist' political group within the European Parliament after the June 2004 elections.