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The breakdown of MEPs, as at today's opening plenary
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Key points to note:
- EPP & S&D no longer hold overall majority (only 44%);
- Renew (ex-ALDE) have had a big boost as third-largest group;
- Failure of BXP to form group leaves a big pile of NIs to sort themselves out in coming days/weeks;
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- EPP & S&D no longer hold overall majority (only 44%);
- Renew (ex-ALDE) have had a big boost as third-largest group;
- Failure of BXP to form group leaves a big pile of NIs to sort themselves out in coming days/weeks;
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This last matters, as not having a group means a loss of funding, speaking time, role allocation, etc.. M5S are the longer-term losers in this, as they're not heading for the door, unlike BXP, so where to head?
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Also notable that no group has members from all EU28, even the bigger ones, while at same time no group is scraping the bottom on threshold (ID has 9 MS; GUE have 41 MEPs), so look quite robust
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On the Brexit front, the removal of British MEPs would not imperil any current group's viability, which only heightens issue for BXP/M5S discussions
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An other point to note is that the big groups are looking more like refuges for smaller MS: of the big 5, only ES has more than half its MEPs in either EPP or S&D
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Overall though, group formation has been much simply than 5 years ago, even with EFDD issue, in contrast to narrative of fragmentation.
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