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Trans‐European Party Groupings: Emergence of New and Alignment of Old Parties in the Light of the Direct Elections to the European Parliament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Paul‐H. Claeys  and
Nicole Loeb‐Mayer
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Extract

TWO QUESTIONS ARISE WHEN CONSIDERING THE CHANGES that might be brought about by direct elections and by developments in the new European Parliament. One concerns institutionalized cooperation between political parties. To what extent can the three existing European party federations – Socialist, Christian Democrat, Liberal – be considered as a step towards the formation of genuine European political parties? Are they anything more than alignments of traditional parties coordinating their action at European level? The other question is related to parties or groups which have not until now created close-knit ad hoc structures. A special case is that of the Communist parties, which have not organized specific links at Communit level. Another problem is raised by non-traditional parties and groups that have in most cases little or no parlia mentary representation at either national or European level. Will some of them take advantage of the European sphere of action to make more impression than they have been able to do at domestic level, in cooperation with similarly oriented partners in other member countries?

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1979 , pp. 455 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1979

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References

1 The theoretical approach of our research has been presented at the ECPR Workshop on Parties and European Integration, Berlin, 27 March–2 April 1977 and in Res Publica, Vol. XIX, 1977, No. 4, pp. 559–77.

2 Palombara, J. La and Weiner, M., ‘The Origin and Development of Political Parties’, in Palombara, J. La and Weiner, M. (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development, Princeton, N. J., Princeton U. P., 1966, pp. 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 P. ‐H. Claeys and N. Loeb‐Mayer, Les groupements politiques dans la perspective de l’dection du Parlement européen, Rapport du 15 juin 1978, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut de Sociologie, 1978.

4 In particular, the European Elections Studies initiated and coordinated by K. Reif and his team at the University of Mannheim are expected to provide important material in this field.

5 See Pridham, G. and Pridham, P., ‘The New European Party Federations and Direct Elections’, The World Today, 02 1979, pp. 62–70.Google Scholar

6 As pointed out by Marquand, D. in ‘Towards a Europe of the Parties’, Political Quarterly, Vol. 49, 10–12 1978, pp. 425–45Google Scholar, Socialist Parties of the Community all belong unmistakably to the same family. On cleavages in European countries, useful data will be found in D. Seiler, Les Partis Politiques en Europe, Paris, 1978.

7 A new Irish party, the Community of Democrats of Ireland, has recently applied for affiliation to the ELD. The Federation’s Executive Committee decided in June 1979 to postpone its acceptance for some months.

8 Rassemblement pour la République, the latest transformation of the Gaullist party under the leadership of J. Chirac.

9 Parti républicain, majority party supporting President Giscard d’Estaing and allied at national level with the EPP party Centre des démocrates sociaux (CDS), though itself a member of the Liberal Federation.

10 Because of the extension of the EDU beyond the present frame of the European Community we have not, as does Lodge, J. (‘Political Parties and Direct Elections to the European Parliament’, Contemporary Review, Year 114, 02 1979, pp. 67–73 Google Scholar), considered it as one of four main transnational party federations.

11 Mouvement des radicaux de gauche, which was part of the Union de la gauche with French Socialists and Communists until the legislative elections of March 1978.

12 The Common Assembly first met in September 1952. Its members have been nominated by the national parliaments until the first direct election that took place in June, 1979. Transnational parliamentary groups have existed since June, 1953.

13 Les groupements politiques dans la perspective de l’éection du Padement européen, Rapport du 15 juin 1978, pp. 124–127.

14 G. Pridham, Christian Democrats, Conservatives and transnational party cooperation in the European Community: centre‐forward or centre‐right? Paper presented to the ECPR Joint Sessions, Brussels, 17–21 April 1979, workshop on Conservative Politics, p. 15; ‘closer transnational links have both produced a more regular and institutionalised practice of cooperation and also occasionally intensified national points of divergence’.

15 Smith, A. D., Nationalism: A trend report and bibliography, Paris, The Hague, Mouton & Co., Current Sociology, Vol. XXI, 1973, No. 3, p. 120.Google Scholar

16 J. Thorpe in The Liberals for Europe, 1976, p. 38.

17 Le Monde, 7 juin 1979.

18 Les Communistes Français et I’Europe, Bulletin of the French Communists of the Assembly of European Communities, No. 1, undated (end 1977?), p. 18.

19 Besides a Danish representative, the Communist seats at the European Assembly were divided into 4 French and 12 Italian seats (2 of which were Italian left‐wing Independents). In 1975, the Dutch also had a Communist delegate.

20 A. Spinelli, candidate for the European election on the Italian Communist Party list, made the distinction between ‘the innovators who, unsatisfied with the Community as it exists, want to progress further, and the immobilists who say: the Common Market as it exists, but not a step further’ (declaration made to Le Monde, 1 June 1979). The Italian Communists support a development of the EC. The majority of the French Communist Party is very much opposed and remains fervently attached to the idea of national independence.

21 Le Monde, 24 janvier 1979.

22 See D. de Rougemont, ‘Ecologie, régions, Europe féderée: měme avenir’, Cadmos, Geneva, Year 2, Spring 1979, pp. 5–12.

23 See D. Seiler, op. cit., pp. 87 & foll.

24 14 April 1979.

25 G. Pridham, op. cit., p. 14.

26 P. Ventujol, ‘La “puissance tribunicienne” du Parlement européen’, Revue Trimestrielle de Droit européen; Paris, Année 14, No. 3, juillet‐septembre 1978, pp. 419–430.

27 Czech dissident, now naturalized Italian and elected on the Socialist list in Italy.