Small political groups must not be banned from European Parliament

2.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 26th May 2008

Andrew Duff, spokesman on constitutional affairs for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), is to oppose a move to cut the number of party political groups in the European Parliament from the beginning of the next legislature.

In a vote on Tuesday, the Constitutional Affairs Committee will decide on whether to raise the threshold for the formation of groups in the Parliament. At present Rule 29 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure says that political groups shall comprise at least 20 MEPs from one fifth of the member states. The proposal from rapporteur Richard Corbett (PES/UK) is to raise these criteria to one quarter and 30, respectively, in the next Parliament.

Andrew Duff says that the effect of this measure in the present Parliament would be to shut down the UEN and the Ind Dem groups. "Whatever one's views about their politics," said Duff, "it cannot be argued that these small groups do not represent a strand of European public opinion. We live in a diverse Europe, and if the European Parliament is to be the legitimate forum for post-national democracy, all sorts of minority opinions have to be given effective, if proportionate representation.

"Mr Corbett's proposal should be resisted. It would not look well for the two large groups of PPE and PSE to be domineering. They already have a lot of power to determine how the House is run and to influence legislation.

"Other procedural reforms taking place have effectively limited the capacity of extremist minorities to disrupt the activities of the House. I do not think we need to go further, and I am not sure what remaining problems Mr Corbett's proposals are actually meant to address.

"If small groups disappear, MEPs with widely divergent opinions will either be forced to join larger groups or to join the ranks of the Non-aligned. Either way the result will be increased incoherence."