European People's Party group
The European People's Party group is a centre-right political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies from the member parties of the European People's Party. It sometimes includes independent MEPs and/or deputies from unaffiliated national parties. The EPP Group comprises politicians of Christian-democratic, conservative and liberal-conservative orientation.
The European People's Party was officially founded as a European political party in 1976. However, the European People's Party group in the European Parliament has existed in one form or another since June 1953, from the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, making it one of the oldest European level political groups. It has been the largest political group in the European Parliament since 1999.
History
The Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community first met on 10 September 1952 and the first Christian Democratic group was unofficially formed the next day, with Maan Sassen as President. The group held 38 of the 78 seats, two short of an absolute majority. On 16 June 1953 the Common Assembly passed a resolution enabling the official formation of political groups, and on 23 June 1953 the constituent declaration of the group was published and the group was officially formed.The Christian Democrat group was the biggest group at formation, but as time wore on it lost support and was the second-biggest group by the time of the 1979 elections. As the European Community expanded into the European Union, the dominant centre-right parties in the new member states were not necessarily Christian democratic, and the EPP feared being sidelined. To counter this, the EPP expanded its remit to cover the centre-right regardless of tradition and pursued a policy of integrating liberal-conservative parties.
This policy led to Greek New Democracy and Spanish People's Party MEPs joining the EPP Group. The British Conservative Party and Danish Conservative People's Party tried to maintain a group of their own called the European Democrats, but lack of support and the problems inherent in maintaining a small group forced ED's collapse in the 1990s, and its members crossed the floor to join the EPP Group. The parties of these MEPs also became full members of the EPP and this consolidation process of the European centre-right throughout the 1990s with the acquisition of members from the Italian party Forza Italia. However, the consolidation was not unalloyed and a split emerged with the Eurosceptic MEPs who congregated in a subgroup within the group, also called the European Democrats.
Nevertheless, the consolidation held through the 1990s, assisted by the group being renamed to the European People's Party – European Democrats group, and after the 1999 European elections the EPP-ED reclaimed its position as the largest group in the Parliament from the Party of European Socialists group.
Size was not enough, however: the group did not have a majority. It continued therefore to engage in the Grand Coalition to generate the majorities required by the cooperation procedure under the Single European Act. This coalition has held, although occasionally the group adopts a government-opposition dynamic with the other groups, notably during the budget crisis when it opposed the PES and brought about the resignation of the Santer Commission.
Meanwhile, the parties in the European Democrats subgroup were growing restless and finally left following the 2009 elections, when the Czech Civic Democratic Party and British Conservative party formed their own right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group on 22 June 2009, abolishing the European Democrats subgroup from that date. The EPP-ED Group reverted to its original name – the EPP Group – immediately.
In the 7th European Parliament the EPP Group remains the largest parliamentary group with 275 MEPs. It is currently the only political group in the European parliament to fully represent its corresponding European political party, i.e. the European People's Party. The United Kingdom was the only member to not be represented in the group until 28 February 2018, when two MEPs suspended from the Conservative Party left the European Conservatives and Reformists and joined the EPP. The two MEPs later joined a breakaway political party in the UK, The Independent Group.
After 12 member parties in the EPP called for Fidesz's expulsion or suspension, Fidesz's membership was suspended on 20 March 2019. The suspension applies only to the EPP but not to its group in the Parliament.
Membership at formation
The 38 members in the group on 11 September 1952 were as follows:Member state | MEPs | Party | MEPs | Notes | Sources |
| Belgium | 5 | Christian Social Party | 5 |
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| France | 5 | Christian People's Party | 2 | ||
| France | 5 | Republican People's Movement | 3 | ||
| Germany | 8 | Christian Democratic Unionand Christian Social Union | 7 |
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| Germany | 8 | Federal Union Party | 1 | ||
| Italy | 12 | Christian Democracy | 12 | ||
| Luxembourg | 2 | Christian Social People's Party | 2 | ||
| Netherlands | 6 | Anti-Revolutionary Party | 2 | ||
| Netherlands | 6 | Catholic People's Party | 3 | ||
| Netherlands | 6 | Christian Historical Union | 1 |
Structure
Organisation
The EPP Group is governed by a collective that allocates tasks. The Presidency consists of the Group Chair and a maximum of ten Vice-Chairs, including the Treasurer. The day-to-day running of the EPP Group is performed by its secretariat in the European Parliament, led by its Secretary-General. The Group runs its own think-tank, the European Ideas Network, which brings together opinion-formers from across Europe to discuss issues facing the European Union from a centre-right perspective.The EPP Group Presidency includes:
| Name | Position | Sources |
| Manfred Weber | Chair | |
| Arnaud Danjean | Vice-Chair | |
| Esther de Lange | Vice-Chair | |
| Esteban González Pons | Vice-Chair | |
| Sandra Kalniete | Vice-Chair | |
| Andrey Kovatchev | Vice-Chair | |
| Vangelis Meimarakis | Vice-Chair | |
| Siegfried Mureşan | Vice-Chair | |
| Jan Olbrycht | Vice-Chair | |
| Paulo Rangel | Vice-Chair |
The chairs of the group and its predecessors from 1952 to 2020 are as follows:
From | To | Chair | Member State | National party |
| 1953 | 1958 | Maan Sassen | Catholic People's Party | |
| 1958 | 1958 | Pierre Wigny | Christian Social Party | |
| 1958 | 1966 | Alain Poher | Popular Republican Movement | |
| 1966 | 1969 | Joseph Illerhaus | Christian Democratic Union | |
| 1969 | 1975 | Hans Lücker | Christian Democratic Union | |
| 1975 | 1977 | Alfred Bertrand | Christian People's Party | |
| 1977 | 1982 | Egon Klepsch | Christian Democratic Union | |
| 1982 | 1984 | Paolo Barbi | Christian Democracy | |
| 1984 | 1992 | Egon Klepsch | / | Christian Democratic Union |
| 1992 | 1994 | Leo Tindemans | Christian People's Party | |
| 1994 | 1999 | Wilfried Martens | Christian People's Party | |
| 1999 | 2007 | Hans-Gert Pöttering | Christian Democratic Union | |
| 2007 | 2014 | Joseph Daul | Union for a Popular Movement | |
| 2014 | present | Manfred Weber | Christian Social Union in Bavaria |
Membership
9th European Parliament
The EPP Group has MEPs from each of the 27 member states. The national parties that have Members of the EPP Group are as follows:7th and 8th European Parliament
Activities
In the news
Activities performed by the group in the period between June 2004 and June 2008 include monitoring elections in Palestine and the Ukraine; encouraging transeuropean rail travel, telecoms deregulation, energy security, a common energy policy, the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Union, partial reform of the CAP and attempts to tackle illegal immigration; denouncing Russian involvement in South Ossetia; supporting the Constitution Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty; debating globalisation, relations with China, and Taiwan; backing plans to outlaw Holocaust denial; nominating Anna Politkovskaya for the 2007 Sakharov Prize; expelling Daniel Hannan from the Group; the discussion about whether ED MEPs should remain within EPP-ED or form a group of their own; criticisms of the group's approach to tackling low turnout for the 2009 elections; the group's use of the two-President arrangement; and the group's proposal to ban the Islamic Burka dress EU wide.Parliamentary activity profile
The debates and votes in the European Parliament are tracked by its website and categorised by the groups that participate in them and the rule of procedure that they fall into. The results give a profile for each group by category and the total indicates the group's level of participation in Parliamentary debates. The activity profile for each group for the period 1 August 2004 to 1 August 2008 in the Sixth Parliament is given on the diagram on the right. The group is denoted in blue.The website shows the group as participating in 659 motions, making it the third most active group during the period.