David Cameron has confirmed that he will honour the pledge he made during his 2005 Conservative Party leadership campaign to withdraw the Conservatives from the European People’s Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) bloc in the European Parliament (EP). This announcement comes ahead of the June elections where the Party is expected to improve upon 2004’s performance. Cameron’s decision to sever the union with the EPP-ED after 17 years, is arguably due to the fact that the ideology harboured in the group differs markedly to that of the Conservative Party on fundamental issues such as, further European integration and a UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
It can be inferred that the Conservatives have always been reluctant members of the bloc as a result of the fact that they joined the group due to the weakened position of the European Democrats in 1992. The rise of euroscepticism in the Conservative Party during the early 1990s, owing greatly to the Maastricht Treaty, heightened the fractious link between the Party and the EPP bloc.
The relationship between the bloc and the Party has been plagued by mistrust from the very beginning. The bloc rejected a membership application by Margaret Thatcher over concerns about the increase in eurosceptic sentiment in Britain. EPP membership remained attractive to John Major’s government as a result of the perceived benefits the Party would reap as part of a large group in the European Parliament, due to the legislature having increased powers through the Single European Act. The bloc’s name was changed to EPP-ED following the ratification of the Malaga Declaration in 1999. The Declaration also strengthened the right of Conservative MEPs to vote separately from other members in the new bloc. The Party continued its bid for greater influence within the bloc. In 2001, the then party leader Iain Duncan Smith made an unsuccessful appeal to the then EPP-ED leader Hans-Gert Poettering asking for an increased budget and greater freedom for Conservative MEPs to promote their policies within the group. In 2003, the Conservatives signed the Prague Declaration which stated the Party’s commitment to free enterprise and national sovereignty, which was in direct conflict with the EPP Basic Programme’s tenets of a federal Europe and support for the social market economy. Under Michael Howard’s leadership in 2004, the EPP-ED group’s constitution was modified to grant the ED with the freedom, “to promote and develop their distinct views on constitutional and institutional issues in the new Europe”.
In 2006, following his successful leadership campaign, David Cameron and Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Civic Democratic Party announced their intention to form a new group in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections. The Movement for European Reform was subsequently launched by the two leaders as a vehicle to developing their agenda independently from the European Parliament.
The Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) and the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) have confirmed their intention to join the Conservatives in a new centre-right bloc. Other potential members of this new group include; Latvians for Fatherland and Freedom (LNNK) who are opposed to a federal Europe and currently sit in the Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) bloc; the Centre Party of Finland (KESK) who favour decentralisation and sit in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) bloc; Irish disability rights campaigner Kathy Sinnott who currently sits in the Independence and Democracy (IND/DEM) bloc; the Swedish June List Party who also sit in the IND/DEM bloc; and the Spanish People’s Party (PP) whose 24 MEPs currently sit in the EPP-ED.
The influence wielded by the two largest parties in the EP, the EPP-ED and the Party of European Socialists (PES) is indisputable. Not only do they gain the majority of committee chairmanships, they also determine a significant number of the votes in the Conference of Presidents which sets the plenary agendas and jurisdiction of parliamentary committees. Membership of the larger groups is advantageous as their support is required in order to achieve an absolute majority under the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure. The EP uses the D’Hondt principle of the list electoral system to allocate positions. The D’Hondt system is inherently biased in favour of larger groups and as a result, contributes to the overwhelming influence of the EPP-ED and the PES in the European Parliament.
It can be argued that the Conservative Party’s departure from the EPP-ED group was inevitable. David Cameron was not the first leadership candidate in 2005 to make this declaration, Liam Fox also vowed to remove the Party from the bloc. The Conservative position within the EPP-ED bloc can be perceived as untenable due to the disparity in party and group ideology on key principles such as sovereignty and deeper integration. The potential for the Conservatives to pursue a divergent agenda whilst remaining within the group would be difficult to achieve. The Conservatives’ modest performance in the 2004 elections can be attributed to the fact that the Party made a commitment to curb further integration whilst retaining membership of the pro-integration EPP-ED bloc. The Party’s opinions are stifled by the majority of MEPs in the group who favour further harmonisation, therefore, breaking free from the shackles of the ‘ever closer union’ enthusiasts could be perceived as the most effective way to pursue the Party’s agenda. The Conservatives’ departure from the bloc after the 2009 elections will be perceived as a hindrance to the Group in the sense that Conservative membership makes a significant contribution in terms of achieving policy and strategic goals through rapporteurships, voting weight and potential leadership roles. Forming a new group has the added fiscal benefit of an aggregate budget of £5million which could be used to promote the new bloc’s objectives.
The new group may challenge the EPP-ED’s dominance of the centre-right if it is successful in attracting established parties such as the Spanish People’s Party. It is no coincidence that the Czech Civic Democrats (ODS) and the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) are the only confirmed members of the Conservatives’ new group and also happen to belong to countries that have yet to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.
