The Conservatives’ new best friends

The Conservatives appear to have completed the switch from the EPP-ED faction within the European Parliament, and created a new bloc called the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, with a total of 55 MEPs from 8 member states (26 of them the Conservative MEPs elected in the UK earlier on this month). Much has been made of the extreme (and frankly naive) anti-gay views held by the Polish Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) party, but the joint manifesto issued by the new faction bears few traces of such orientation-discrimination (H/T Guido):

THE PRAGUE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS GROUP IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

CONSCIOUS OF THE URGENT NEED TO REFORM THE EU ON THE BASIS OF EUROREALISM, OPENNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND DEMOCRACY, IN A WAY THAT RESPECTS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR NATIONS AND CONCENTRATES ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH AND COMPETITIVENESS, THE EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS GROUP SHARES THE
FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

1. Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
2. Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
3. Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
4. The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
5. The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
6. The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalised NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
7. Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures
8. Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
9. An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
10. Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

If I’m honest, I see nothing in this Prague Declaration to disturb me or discourage me from supporting the move, apart from possibly the clauses about the family being the “bedrock of society” (which is a little dated, but poses no threat in and of itself unless abused for the sake of discrinimation against homosexuals and women) and opposition to EU federalism (which I see as little different from subnational federalism, just with a higher central authority). Somewhat unsurprisingly, I’m particularly fond of clauses (1), (2) and (9) – greater freedom and requirement of action for individuals, and smaller, less bureaucratic government. Spot on.

Other than the 15 MEPs provided by Law and Justice, there are a further 9 from the Czech Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana, ODS), and one each from the Dutch Christian Union (ChristenUnie), Latvian National Independence Movement (Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/Latvijas Nacionālās Neatkarības Kustība, TB/LNNK), Hungarian Democratic Forum (Magyar Demokrata Fórum, MDF) and Belgian List Dedecker (Lijst Dedecker, LDD). There’s also one maverick MEP from the liberal-centrist Finnish Centre Party (Suomen Keskusta, Kesk.), the remainder of which has stayed in the ALDE bloc. By way of a little more background, the ODS models itself on the Polish Civic Platform party (the more moderate centre-right group in the Sejm), ChristenUnie is economically centre-left and socially conservative, including anti-drugs, anti-pornography, anti-gay, anti-euthanasia, anti-genetic-manipulation, and anti-abortion policy elements, TB/LNNK are Latvian nationalists (with outward-looking views not far removed from those of the BNP), the MDF are free-market liberal conservatives, and the LDD are a libertarian-conservative party that follow the brand of liberal conservatism espoused by Pim Fortuyn (called fortuynism in his honour).

In other words, something of a mixed bag really – some deeply unpleasant elements (ChristenUnie, the PiS and the TB/LNNK) along with some really rather good ones (ODS, MDF, LDD). Which one of these exactly wins out in the end to affect the overall policy position of the new faction has yet to be determined – though I suspect that 26 + 9 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 38 liberal-conservatives vs 15 + 1 + 1 = 17 nutters should tilt the balance towards the sensible end of the group. And ultimately it probably won’t even matter all that much within the grand scheme of EU policy-making. But it’s still interesting to see quite what a motley crew the Conservatives have had to drag together in an attempt to create an anti-federal centre-right grouping within the EU Parliament, and whether the mood within the various countries that are contributing to the new bloc will keep it in existence for very long. The bad election results of the PiS and some of the others suggests otherwise from where we currently stand…

~ by Marius Ostrowski on June 22, 2009.