Big bang nerves

The Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi, has joined some other leaders within the European People's Party (EPP) to warn the new leader of the British Conservative Party, David Cameron, of the consequences if he pulls out his party out of the EPP. By the time these leaders had signed their letter, however, Mr Cameron's envoy, William Hague, had already pencilled in March as the month in which he will be meeting these leaders to explain the Tory position. It increasingly seems as though the Tory pullout from the EPP is not a matter of if, but when.

Readers who have been following the story might be wondering why the EPP is making these efforts to retain the Tories. True, the Conservative Party is a party of government within a major member state; after a decade of disarray, it will be an electoral force at the next British general election in 2009. But it is also true that, as several senior Conservatives have acknowledged, the Tory pullout is likely to hurt, above all, the Tories themselves: a considerable loss of influence on European Parliament (EP) legislation, senior committee positions, and funds.

The main reason for the EPP's concern has probably to do with the major reshuffle of EP posts that is due next January. This mid-term reshuffle will include the presidency as well as committee chairmanships. The EP duopoly of the EPP and Party of European Socialists (PES) has already determined that the presidency during this legislature would be divided between the PES, that currently holds it, and the EPP, whose leader, Hans-Gert Poettering, should become president of the EP next year.

The prospect of a Tory pullout, however, complicates this reshuffle and its consequences.

Under the current alliance they have with the EPP, the Tories have a disproportionate allocation of committee chairmanships. Should they pull out of the EPP after the January 2007 reshuffle, they will take away a number of important committee posts with them - to the anger of several EPP members who, had the Tories left before 2007, would have earned the plum jobs for themselves.

But the future scenario does not get easier if the Tories pull out of the EPP before next January. On the contrary, it gets more complicated. The Tories are likely to take some other current EPP members with them - certain Polish MEPs and possibly others from the new member states, who feel more comfortable advocating a free market liberalism than the social market approach of the EPP.

The withdrawal of such MEPs would not be all bad news for the EPP. It would enable other MEPs to join, or re-join. Romano Prodi, for example, is a left-of-centre Christian Democrat, even if he does not put it that way; his closest Italian allies used to be members of the EPP but left to join the liberal grouping in the EP. They now sit uneasily alongside, for example, the right-wing German liberals. Before the last EP election, Mr Prodi had prospected the formation of a new grouping within the EP - a centrist grouping for progressives; now, he is prospecting the formation of a new party, the Democrats, in Italy, after the April 9 election. The departure of some of the more economically conservative members of the EPP would offer Mr Prodi the rationale he possibly wants to have his close allies join the EPP.

At this stage, a sub-plot has to be factored in. The liberal group within the EP is an unstable alliance between unlikely partners. A conservative secession from the EPP might destabilise the liberals, too. A senior Christian Democrat trade unionist based in Brussels speculated that what might happen was a "big bang": a reshaping of the EPP, which would both lose and gain members, and the reconstitution of the Liberal grouping, possibly under a different name, around the British Conservatives.

The consequences of such a big bang are, at the present stage, imponderable. There is nothing to guarantee, for example, that if the Conservatives leave the EPP then Mr Prodi will join: his national alliance is rickety, and some of his left-wing Italian allies might object to their government being made of coalition partners who are adversaries within the EP.

If the big bang goes wrong for the EPP, leaving it with significantly fewer MEPs than it had at the beginning of the legislature, the gain of the EP presidency at the start of 2007 might be placed in jeopardy. Mr Poettering is said to prefer a post-January 2007 exit of the Conservatives to an earlier one: it would enable him to pilot the EPP into the presidency more smoothly. It would cost the EPP some committee chairmanships, but at least not at the cost of the big prize.

The best option remains, however, that the British Conservatives retain their current arrangement with the EPP. That is why some EPP leaders do protest so much.

ranierfsadni@europe.com