The Tories' long-mooted departure from the EPP-ED group has finally become a reality, following months of negotiations across the continent led by the UK Conservatives (EurActiv 02/06/09).
Leading Tories hailed the move as a significant evolution in the EU political landscape. Timothy Kirkhope MEP, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, said his party was "very excited about this important new development in European politics," which "will make a strong case for a centre/centre-right but non-federalist future for the EU".
The Prague Manifesto: A new 'eurorealism'
The new group's "non-federalism" has been codified in a declaration signed by all members, the so-called 'Prague Manifesto'. While the declaration is careful to avoid specific issues that could lead to disputes between members, the 10 principles stress one basic message: "the urgent need to reform the EU on the basis of Eurorealism, openness, accountability and democracy".
"The one thing that all of the members of the grouping have in common is that they believe in a non-federalist future for the European Union," the UK's Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois told EurActiv in a phone interview from Westminster.
Weak political formation?
However, while Francois said he was "very confident" that the group was "going to prosper," leading EU commentators offered mixed assessments regarding the ECR's prospects of becoming a forceful opposition in the Parliament.
Andrew Duff, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat MEPs, believes that the ECR's "bizarre cabal of ultra-Catholics from Poland and ultra-Calvinists from the Netherlands" will have a destabilising effect on the new group's effectiveness.
"It is certainly not in the British interest for the Tories to be moving from the political mainstream to the political margins," he claimed, adding: "I query the credo of this new group and look forward with interest to seeing the common political programme that they will now have to put together."
Furthermore, while the ECR's ranks will be dominated by MEPs from the Tories (26 MEPs) and the Polish Law and Justice party (PiS: 15 MEPs), six of the group's nine national delegations consist of a single MEP.
In other words, should just three of those six MEPs at any point become disillusioned with the group's direction and threaten to leave, they would effectively hold veto power over the groups' continued existence (a group requires MEPs from at least seven member states).
As a result, the Tories will arguably need to guarantee these six MEPs positions of influence in the new group.
A leading EPP source, speaking to EurActiv on condition of anonymity, said that the ECR looked "a fragile coalition," arguing that "keeping the six single party members happy might prove to be too much hard work" for the Tories. "I don't see how they will have sufficient patronage powers to deal out, for instance, committee chairs to these six MEPs".
"This is ironic," he added, "considering it's a well-known fact that the EPP's generosity to the Tories in this area in the previous Parliament was in fact one of the primary examples of the benefits for the Tories in remaining part of the EPP".
Mark Francois would not be drawn on the group's possible instability in relying so heavily on single MEPs. "As you know, the threshold for forming a group was raised. Well, we've beaten the requirements both by the number of MEPs and by the number of countries."
Moreover, Francois added that while "we have announced the core of our new group today, [...] discussions are still continuing and we are hopeful that we can find more MEPs from other countries before the European Parliament formally sits on 14 July".
He would not disclose who those other MEPs might be, saying that "discussions are still ongoing".
