Member of The European Parliament - MEPs Within The Parliament

MEPs Within The Parliament

All but 27 MEPs are members of cross-nationality political groups, organised according to political allegiance. For instance, the Irish Labour and French Socialist MEPs are members of the Socialists & Democrats while the Swedish Moderate and German CDU MEPs are members of the European People's Party.

MEPs in Parliament are organised into seven different parliamentary groups, including about thirty non-attached members known as non-inscrits. The two largest groups are the European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D). These two groups have dominated the Parliament for much of its life, continuously holding between 50 and 70 percent of the seats together. No single group has ever held a majority in Parliament. As a result of being broad alliances of national parties, European groups parties are very decentralised and hence have more in common with parties in federal states like Germany or the United States than unitary states like the majority of the EU states. Although, the European groups, between 2004 and 2009, were actually more cohesive than their US counterparts.

Aside from working through their Groups, individual members are also guaranteed a number of individual powers and rights within the Parliament:

• the right to table a motion for resolution;
• the right to put questions to the Council of the European Union, the Commission, and to the leaders of the Parliament;
• the right to table an amendment to any text in committee;
• the right to make explanations of vote;
• the right to raise points of order;
• the right to move the inadmissibility of a matter.