Statement on ECR enlargement

The ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists)  Group in the European Parliament issued the following statement yesterday:

 

The European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group last night grew to 55 MEPs, putting it just four members behind the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group.
 
With more parties expected to join, it is now increasingly likely that the ECR could be the third biggest group and therefore kingmaker in the next European parliament.
 
At an ECR Group meeting last night, 10 MEPs from six parties were admitted. Four members from the Danish People’s Party and two members from the Finns Party were admitted although the Finn’s membership is pending a formal meeting with Poland’s Law and Justice Party.
 
The other parties that were admitted were Nova and OL ‘ aNO from Slovakia, the Independent Hellenes from Greece and The Family Party from Germany – all with one member each.

The membership application from Alternative für Deutschland - a moderate eurosceptic group from Germany which won seven seats last month - is still under consideration.

In many ways it would be daft it AfD were not allowed to join the ECR, but there is a catch - we need Angela Merkel's co-operation to have any chance of co-operation, and to say that her party do not get on well with AfD is an understatement.

This one will run for a while - but actually, the very success of the British Conservatives in persuading others to join the ECR means that would no longer be in a majority within the group even if we hadn't lost a few seats last month. We can't actually stop our allies from allowing the AfD to join even if DC tries to placate Angela Merkel by telling British Conservative MEPs to vote against the application.

Negotiations are also under way with Bulgaria Without Censorship. They have two seats.

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