Following the elections in 2004, the former MEPs of the group took MEPs from the new member countries on board and together, they registered the new group Independence and Democracy ( IND / DEM ).

They were joined by 4 MEPs from the left-wing Danish Eurosceptic People's Movement against the EU, while the other regionalist MEPs, including those of the SDLP, the SVP, Batasuna and the Convergence and Union of Catalonia ( CiU ) refused to join.

In the 2009 European Parliament election the EFA got six MEPs elected: two from the SNP ( Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith ), one from the PC ( Jill Evans ), one from the Party of the Corsican Nation ( PNC ; François Alfonsi ), one from the ERC ( Oriol Junqueras ) and Tatjana Ždanoka, individual member of the EFA from Latvia.

It is made up of MEPs elected from the lists of member parties of the European People's Party ( EPP ).

The parties of these MEPs also became full members of the EPP ( with the exception of the British Conservatives who did not join the Party ) and this consolidation process of the European centre-right throughout the ' 90s with the acquisition of members from the Italian Forza Italia.

The GUE / NGL is a confederal group: it is composed of MEPs from national parties.

* Associate member parties may include parties that do not have MEPs ( e. g., French Trotskyist parties which did not get elected in the 2004 European elections ), are from states that are not part of the European Union, or do not wish to be full members.

The GUE / NGL has MEPs from 13 states, including seven with more than one MEP ( in burgundy ) and six with one MEP each ( in light puce ).

In 2004, 37 Members of the European Parliament ( MEPs ) from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden founded a new European Parliament group called “ Independence and Democracy ” from the old Europe of Democracies and Diversities ( EDD ) group.

The elections in 2009 saw a significant drop in some areas in support for Eurosceptic parties, with all MEPs from Poland, Denmark and Sweden losing their seats.

The ID group did reform, as the Europe of Freedom and Democracy ( EFD ) and is represented by 32 MEPs from nine countries.

As of June 2009, Cameron required a further four partners apart from the Polish and Czech supports to qualify for official fraction status in the parliament ; the rules state that a caucus needs at least 25 MEPs from at least seven of the 27 EU member states.

* June 7 – The first direct elections to the European Parliament begin, allowing citizens from across all then-9 European Community member states to elect 410 MEPs.

Germany, a stronghold of the Green movement, elected seven MEPs ; two more came from Belgium and two from the Netherlands.

As those nine MEPs did not entitle the Greens to form a parliamentary group on their own, they concluded an alliance with MEPs from Italy, Denmark, and regionalists from Flanders and Ireland to form the GRAEL ( Green Alternative European Link ) group, also known as the Rainbow group.

These MEPs represent Labour policy on these committees and act as spokespeople on the subjects covered by the committee.

Attempts by several MEPs to disrupt the work of the Parliament caused sufficient annoyance for a majority of Members to endorse a rule change giving the Speaker / President the discretion to limit the use of filibustering procedures where he " is convinced that these are manifestly intended to cause, and will result in, a prolonged and serious obstruction of the procedures of the House or the rights of other Members " ( Rule 20, para 1 ).

Nevertheless, those national parties, not the group, retain control of their MEPs.

Eleven MEPs of member parties were elected to the European Parliament.

The position of the European Greens was also weakened by the principle of rotation which some member parties ( Germany and the Netherlands ) used, with their MEPs being replaced by another after serving half their term.

On 4 November 2011, MEPs Zbigniew Ziobro, Jacek Kurski, and Tadeusz Cymański were ejected from the party, after Ziobro urged the party to split further into two separate parties – centrist and nationalist – with the three representing the nationalist faction.

The Act led to a great many more MEPs being returned from minor parties in the 1999 European elections, with more Liberal Democrats, along with the first European representatives for Plaid Cymru and the first national representatives for both the Green Party and the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Early in 2004, he accused MEPs of all parties of falsely claiming reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses.

The code sets out rules and principles that MEPs should follow in their dealings with outside parties in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

As of January 2007, with Romania's accession to the E. U., it was reported that România Mare's five MEPs were set to join a group of far-right parties in the European Parliament that includes the French National Front and Austrian Freedom Party, giving them sufficient numbers to form an official bloc, called Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty.

Working together in Groups benefits European political parties: for example, the European Free Alliance ( 5 MEPs in 6th Parliament ) and the European Greens ( 37 MEPs in 6th Parliament ) have more power by working together in the European Greens – European Free Alliance Group ( 42 MEPs ) than they would have as stand-alone parties, bringing their causes much-needed additional support.

The groups are coalitions of MEPs and the Europarties and national parties that those MEPs belong to.

Additionally, national media focus on the MEPs / national parties of their own member state, neglecting the group's activities and poorly understanding their structure or even existence.

The European Democratic Group ( ED ) was formed on 17 July 1979 by British Conservative, Danish Conservative and other MEPs after their success in the 1979 elections.

The MEPs may be part of a national party, or a European political party, but for a political grouping in parliament to be formed there need to be 25 MEPs from seven different states.

They also have had 3 MEPs in the European Parliament since the European Elections of 2009 ( 10, 73 %, surpassing for the first time the CDU platform, formed by the Greens and the Portuguese Communist Party ) and many local councillors.

On 16 November 2010, MPs Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, Elzbieta Jakubiak and Pawel Poncyljusz, and MEPs Adam Bielan and Michał Kamiński formed a new political group, Poland Comes First ( Polska jest Najważniejsza ).

In 2004, 31 MEPs from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden formed the new Independence / Democracy, formerly the group for Europe of Democracies and Diversities.

Between 2004 and 2009, ODS MEPs sat with the EPP-ED grouping in the European Parliament, but after the 2009 elections, several members of the EPP-ED left to join the newly formed European Conservatives and Reformists ( ECR ) grouping, which was based on the Movement for European Reform, an alliance between ODS and the British Conservative Party.

Fine Gael's MEPs sit with the EPP Group in the European Parliament, and FG parliamentarians also sit with the EPP Groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Committee of the Regions.

FF had already left for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, TB / LNNK and Law and Justice MEPs went to the European Conservatives and Reformists, and Lega Nord, the Danish People's Party and Order and Justice MEPs went to Europe of Freedom and Democracy.

VVD MEPs are part of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe EP group.

* MEPs: Malika Benarab-Attou, Pascal Canfin, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Karima Delli, Hélène Flautre, Catherine Grèze, Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, Michèle Rivasi ( 6 of the 14 MEPs from Europe Écologie are not members of the party ).

Category: Europe Écologie – The Greens MEPs

The party's MEPs sit with the Alliance of Lberals and Democrats for Europe parliamentary group.

Category: Europe Écologie – The Greens MEPs

Category: Europe Transparent MEPs

Three of Denmark's thirteen MEPs are from Venstre, and they sit with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European Parliament.

It elected six MEPs at the 2004 European election, with five joining the Union for Europe of the Nations and one joining the Socialist Group.

Following Booth's speech, an alliance between UKIP and the UK Labour Party MEPs persuaded the EU Transport Commissioner to amend the directive, allowing the service ( and similar ' social carriers ' across Europe ) to continue in business.

Claude Moraes is the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in Europe ( the European Parliamentary Labour Party, or EPLP ) one of eight MEPs representing London.

Richard Corbett's pamphlet " 25 Things You Didn't Know When You Voted For UKIP ", published by Britain in Europe in 2004, was the subject of further controversy in October 2004, when UKIP demanded that the pamphlet be pulped, claiming that one item in the pamphlet " breaks a court order banning publication of details of a legal action involving one of the party's MEPs ", namely the fraud case against Ashley Mote MEP.

She was rated as the 35th best out of all 785 MEPs and 9th best of the 78 UK MEPs on promoting transparency and reform according to eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe.

She is a member of the European Parliament's Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe ( ALDE ) group in the European Parliament, which comprises 85 MEPs from 19 member states.

37 MEPs ( 33 on July 20, with four more the next day ) from the United Kingdom Independence Party ( UKIP ), Junibevægelsen ( Denmark ), Mouvement pour la France ( France ), Lega Nord ( Italy ), ChristenUnie-SGP ( Netherlands ), LAOS ( Greece ), Junilistan ( Sweden ), Nezávislí ( Czech Republic ), the League of Polish Families ( Poland ) and an Independent from Ireland, joined together in the first week of the new Parliament to form the Eurosceptic group called " Independence / Democracy ", succeeding the group called " Europe of Democracies and Diversities " that had existed before the elections.

The list, named Socialists United for Europe, gained 2. 0 % of the vote, and two MEPs, Gianni De Michelis and Alessandro Battilocchio.