Graham's blog Friday 3 July 2009

Published on Fri 3rd Jul 2009

There are five weeks between the European elections and the constitutive session of the European Parliament. Normally the political parties in the European Parliament allow a clear fortnight after the election before meeting to prepare for the opening of Parliament. This year the major parties did not: the Leaders of both the Christian Democrat and Socialist groups feared that delay might affect their own chances of re-election to the head of their groups; so their procedures were advanced by two weeks. The trouble with this is that the sultry weather in Brussels in June-July and the exhaustion of an election campaign combine to leave tempers fraying and agreement more difficult to reach.

The European People's Party (Christian Democrat) was the clear winner from the election. With 264 seats they are now almost half as big again as the Socialists. They look likely to put forward a former Polish Prime Minister, Jerzy Buzek, as their candidate to preside our assembly. Their German CDU-CSU members, who form the largest national delegation in their group, appear to be firmly in control.

The Party of the European Socialists, with just 184 seats, enjoyed the kind of blazing row that heavy defeat brings. The decimation of the ranks of UK and French MEPs means that German Socialist leader Martin Schulz had little trouble securing re-election. But people are looking for ways to vent their anger; they did so this week about the change of the name of their Group from 'The Party of European Socialists' (PES) to 'The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats' (PASD) - a change to accommodate some non-Socialist Italians - with a vengeance that suggests they will be unable to function normally for some time to come.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe was able to reconstitute itself smoothly at meetings in Bristol last week and in Brussels this week. At 84 members we are slightly down from our strength in the last Parliament, but I was able to hand over to my successor - former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt - a group united in purpose and still clearly ahead of a new eurosceptic right wing group (British Tories and others, 54 seats) and a numerically strengthened (though ideologically more splintered than ever) Green group, also with 54 seats.

In addition there are 32 former Communists and 27 members of a new Group of anti-Europeans headed by Nigel Farage of UKIP.

It seems now highly unlikely that we will agree to vote before the summer break on whether to confirm Jose Manuel Barroso. Though he is the unanimous nominee of the EU's member states, few in Parliament agree to be pressed into voting now. Parliament's group leaders will discuss the timetable on Monday with the Prime Minister of Sweden, who took over the EU's rotating Presidency on 1 July. This situation leaves an air of doubt about Barroso's future which threatens to spoil his summer holiday.