AFP, Brussels, June 8, 2009 – Political horse-trading between EU parliament groups got underway Monday after centre-right parties pulled away at the polls from the socialists as the biggest force in the new assembly.
’There needs to be a majority in the European parliament and, regardless of our success, no political group has an absolute majority, therefore we have to negotiate,’ said Wilfried Martens, a leader of the conservative European People’s Party, the winning umbrella grouping of national centre-right parties.
At a press conference the day after four days of EU parliamentary elections ended, Martens evoked the possibility of a ’cooperation’ between the three main political families in the chamber ’the Christian Democrats of the EPP, but also the Social-Democrats and the Liberals.’
The European People’s Party (EPP) emerged with 267 of the 736 seats in the parliament, widening the gap over the second-placed socialists who won 159 seats and the liberals who were also squeezed and ended up on 81.
Lower down the pecking order, the Greens and various far-right and anti-EU parties made significant gains.
Faced by the mounting ’populism and euroscepticism’ evident at the ballot boxes, Martens insisted that ’it is more important than ever to achieve this cooperation.’
Graham Watson, the British head of the European Liberals, did not reject the idea of cooperating with the conservative EPP but appeared to impose his own conditions.
’We must reflect on the wishes of those who went to the ballot boxes and gave us a European parliament with a centre-right majority. I think the most logical conclusion would be a centre right alliance to lead this parliament,’ he said, adding that he had already scheduled a meeting with EPP leaders.
However he said he hoped the incoming EU parliament would be ’mature enough’ so that any such cooperation deal would be ’based on a political programme rather than just a technical arrangement as we have seen in the past.’
He also suggested the conservatives might like to divide up key posts, suggesting that if the Liberals supported EPP-backed European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso to serve a second term then the Liberals could take the post of EU parliament president, a job Watson would be a candidate for.