When is a group not a political group? the dissolution of the TDI group in the european parliament

Abstract

This article is about political groups and non-attached members in the European Parliament (EP). Although the strengthening of the former to the detriment of the latter is an old as well as an incremental phenomenon, it is with the current legislature that the struggle between the two has become a central issue of the EP agenda. The peak is the case of the TDI Group (‘Bonino-Le Pen’), the first political group dissolved by the assembly itself, backed by an unprecedented judgment of the Court of First Instance, on the basis of the lack of political affinities between its members. At the same time as shedding light on the way political groups are conceived and the prerogatives they reserve, this episode emphasises the special imperatives of the EP internal organisation and helps to explain the most recent revision of the Rules of Procedure. The study reveals that over time the EP has increasingly enhanced the role of political groups to an extent that non-attached members consider prejudicial for the full exercise of the democratic mandate; moreover, it shows that the requirement of political affinities to form political groups is formal in nature so that only an explicit denial would entail its actual enforcement, as was the case for the TDI Group; finally, while emphasising that the EP's internal structure needs to be considered in the light of the special legislative role and unique transnational features of the institution itself, it warns that reference to other national models can be misleading.