Raphael Vassallo
Perhaps it is just as well that the Nationalist Party has ditched its former campaign slogan that the European People’s Party is the “largest political bloc” in the EU.
If British Conservative party leader David Cameron has his way, the Tories will shortly pull out of the centre-right political grouping, and forge a new breakaway alliance with hard-line right-wing parties from Poland, the Czech Republic and possibly Finland.
In fact both the Tories and Czech conservatives ODS are already discussing the possibility of a full withdrawal. If this materialises after June 6, there is a fair chance that the Party of European Socialists (PES) will replace the EPP as Europe’s largest political bloc... hence, one supposes, Lawrence Gonzi’s curious choice of unofficial slogan: “small is beautiful”.
However, Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil played down fears that a split will affect the EPP’s status as Europe’s largest political formation.
“The ‘ED’ part of the EPP-ED was a minority part counting some 35 odd MEPs,” he told MaltaToday. “On the basis of the strength of the outgoing Parliament, the departure of the Conservatives and ODS would still leave the EPP as the largest group with some 250 MEPs.”
Busuttil further suggests that what the party loses in numbers, it stands to gain in political coherence. “Whereas the departure of the ED component of the group affects numbers negatively, it may well affect the group’s political cohesion positively. For instance, on issues such as deeper European integration and the Lisbon treaty, there was a clear difference between the EPP and the ED, with the EPP being firmly pro-European in its approach. Thus, the departure of the ED would re-establish the EPP in its rightful place as one of the leading pro-European groups in Parliament.”
Busuttil adds that the same applies on issues such as social policy, where the EPP, as a Christian Democrat party, veers more to the centre than to the right within the current political formation.
“The above notwithstanding, I have no doubt that even after the departure of ED colleagues, the EPP would continue working closely with the new group, especially on issues relating to market and the economy where the positions of the two factions were always convergent,” Busuttil added.
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