The map of the hemicycle

The campaign for the elections of the European Parliament has reached its culmination in all 27 member states. Parties, lists and candidates are contesting the 736 constituencies for the EP legislature 2009-2014. The constituencies are distributed between the individual member states on the basis of their respective populations.“National” electoral campaigns. The campaigns in the various member countries resemble each other in at least three respects: first, they are almost exclusively focused on national policy issues rather than European questions and those that fall directly under the powers of the European Union; second, the parties themselves are giving rise to elections of a national character, predominated by domestic agendas rather than any wider vision of the future of European integration; third, the attention of the media tends to share this national approach to the elections, rather than urge contestants to express their “idea of Europe”, and expound programmes to reinforce the EU and make it more effective. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule and some wider European issues are erupting into some television debates or newspaper articles: they include in particular the questions of energy, climate change, security and the response to immigration. The Lisbon Treaty, on the other hand, remains outside the scope of public opinion (very few electors are familiar with its content and values), except in those countries in which it represents a stumbling block between “eurosceptic” and “euroenthusiastic” positions: this goes especially for Ireland, which will have to return to the polls to vote a second time whether to ratify it or not, and in the countries of Eastern Europe, especially in the Czech Republic, which now holds the rotating Presidency of the EU, and which has just ratified the Treaty, though registering strong internal opposition. Seven groups, plus the “non-aligned”. So the parties and party leaders are showing little interest in European problems; yet the parties ought to represent the soul of the political debate in the European Parliament, where MEPs are divided not by nationality but by the political groups to which they belong. At the present time seven groups exist in the Parliament: the largest, that of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats/European Democrats) (EPP/ED), which comprised 288 MEPs at the last plenary session in May; the Socialist Group (ESP), comprising 217 MEPs; the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe (ALDE), 100; the Union for the Europe of Nations (UEN), 44; the Green/European Free Alliance Group (Greens/EFA), 43; the confederated Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (EUG/NGL), 41; and Independence/Democracy (Ind/Dem), 22. There are also 30 “non aligned” or independent MEPs, those that belong to no group. Each political group hitherto had to have not less than 20 deputies from at least six member states; after the elections in 2009, however, it will be required to have 25 elected representatives from at least seven member states to form a political group in Strasbourg. Convictions, national interests, lobbies. The political groups in the EP however should not be understood as similar to the parties that compose in general the national Parliaments, in other words, cohesive in historical, ideological, cultural and programmatic terms. In actual fact representatives elected in numerous lists, coalitions or parties on a regional or national basis are then co-opted into the various groups in the European Parliament, in which they have to mediate on each issue or draft legislation between personal ethical and political convictions, national interests, and social and territorial interests of which each MEP feels he/she is an interpreter. In additions, MEPs are subjected to very strong pressures from lobbies of every kind revolving around the institutions of the EU. In this sense, therefore, the “European common good” ought to be a result of these understandable mediations and pressures, even if very often this does not happen. The composition of the individual formations. As regards the composition of the EP, some characteristics of the various political groups can be observed. For example, within the EPP the strongest national group is, at the end of the 2004-2009 legislature, the German component (a combination of the CDU and CSU parties), with 49 MEPs, followed by 27 from the UK (Conservatives), 24 from Italy (especially members of the ruling Forza Italia party), 24 from Spain, 18 from France and Romania, and 15 from Poland. Deputies from all 27 nationalities in the EU are members of the EPP. In the Socialist group, the ESP, by contrast, the predominant national component is that of France (Socialists), with 31 members, followed by 24 from Spain, 23 from Germany (Social Democrats), 19 from the UK (Labour), 17 from Italy, and 12 from Portugal. Neither Cypriots nor Latvians are represented in the ESP. The main national components in the ALDE are the Italian, British and French; Belgians, Bulgarians, Germans, Lithuanians, Dutch and Finns are also well represented. In the UEN the nationalities most represented are those of Poland and Italy; Germans and French predominate among the Greens; Czechs, Germans and Italians in the EUG; while the British prevail in the Ind/Dem group.