3 Apr 2020, 09:00

To clarify for the Cllr from the Ottoman Empire. European Council Political Groups are not political parties, the age of the European political party is from years ago and no longer relevant. I'm more inclined to support the two person requirement, however since the passage of this act only two European political groups has formed. The European Progressive Alliance, and the European Liberals only one which has been able to maintain any level of success.

The Political Groups are almost entirely for branding, I wish we had more issue specific European Groups, but the nature of the act precludes that by limiting Councillors are limited to being members of one. The obvious results is that the Eurogroups have done nothing to improve upon the situation from the previous Europarties. At this point I would much rather bring back Europarties.

In fact, the European Council Political Groups Act forbids the use of member-ship even associate membership to anyone outside potential candidates for commission or the European Council. So their point of being made for the council and only for the council has effectively made them fairly inactive. Sure, lowering the requirement may go to help them to /some/ extent but really what has been different in the last four years? I doubt lowering the requirements will help that much to alleviate the issue. For example I only joined the EPA since there was no other ideological equivalent but it was the closest thing in the Council at the time, and it would be unlikely I could muster and support a long term group based on what I would consider my own ideologies. We simply do not have the numbers.

Now I expect some Councillors to cite how people can always make European Political Groups, and so on and so forth. But the fact remains, people haven't and political parties at our national level are fairly left out in the process of European level politics.

Considering for example the creation of the 'Institute of the European Left' we should look into bringing back Europarties to some extent, I believe that would be far more effective in long or short term.

Cllr. Carita Falk
Archrepublic of Vayinaod