Following last month’s European Elections the European Parliament will meet on July 1st to constitute itself and elect its new President. Most commentators expect that the two largest groups, the European People’s Party and the Socialist and Democrats, will continue their alliance and split the presidency again between them.
So how did the groups fair?
The European Parliament now consists of 751 MEPs down 15 from the 766 MEPs in the last parliament. There has been some changes of Group compositions with newly elected parties and independents joining groups and some parties changing groups. The Groups now stand as follows:
- EPP: 221 (-53)
- S&D: 191 (-4)
- ECR: 63 (+7)
- ALDE: 59 (-26)
- Greens/EFA: 54 (-4)
- GUE/NGL: 52 (+17)
- EFD: 32 (-1)
- NI: 79
In Ireland Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein have remained with their respective groups (EPP, S&D & GUE/NGL) and Independent Marian Harkin has also remained with ALDE.
Independent Nessa Childers has been readmitted to the S&D Group ensuring they are represented in every member state after Labour’s wipe-out at the elections. Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagen has joined Sinn Fein in the GUE/NGL group. The Socialist Party failed to retain it’s MEP.
That means the groups stand as follows in the Irish Delegation:
- EPP: 4 (-)
- S&D: 1 (-2)
- ALDE: 2 (-2)
- GUE/NGL: 4 (+4)
Commission President – Parliament v European Council
After electing the President and 14 Vice Presidents of the Parliament the next task will be voting for the European Commission President. While the EPP and S&D leadership are backing Jean Claude-Juncker they dont have complete control of their groups. With UK Labour opposing Junker’s candidacy, neither party can afford to lose support on this vote.
- Needed for a Majority: 376
- EPP + S&D: 412
- EPP + S&D -UKLab: 392
16 votes would be quite close. But of course Junker will have to emerge as the European Council Nominee first, a battle in itself, before any such vote will take place in the European Parliament.
Related articles
- Bulgaria’s MEPs take their places in European Parliament political groupings (sofiaglobe.com)
- European Parliament Elections 2014 – Ireland (stephenspillane.com)
