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Seventy years of transnational political groups in the European Ϸվ: Origins and trajectories

Briefing 12-12-2023

The creation and formalisation of the European Ϸվ's political groups goes back to June 1953 and the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community's Common Assembly. This briefing analyses the evolution of the groups' structures and trajectories until the European elections in 2019. It shows how the conflict between national, political and transnational ideological allegiances of delegated Members of the Common Assembly was already present from the start, providing an important impetus for the formalisation of the political groups. This formalisation created the basis for the groups' key role in structuring the work of the Common Assembly and later of the European Ϸվ. Ϸվ's competence for its own budget meanwhile made the groups' formalisation imperative to allow the distribution of funds for office space, secretariats and policy-making resources. The structure and power distribution among the groups has remained relatively stable to the present day. Changing national-level cleavages, such as the emergence of the Green and populist far-right parties has been reflected in the groups' structure and composition. However, the number of groups has never exceeded ten and has been stable at seven since 2004, limiting the institutional impact of growing diversity. Key institutional factors for this relatively high concentration and stability include the budgetary and institutional benefits of group membership for individual Members of the European Ϸվ, and the importance of powerful and cohesive groups for exercising influence both in Ϸվ and in the EU's legislative process. While research into the history of the political groups is still in its infancy, possible areas worth exploring include the role of chairs and secretaries-general in organising and leading groups. This briefing follows up a roundtable event hosted by EPRS on 27 June 2023, which included contributions by Hans-Gert Pöttering, former chair of the EPP Group and European Ϸվ President, Hannes Swoboda, former chair of the S&D Group, Gijs de Vries, former chair of the ELDR Group, and Jürgen Mittag, Sport University Cologne.