EU leaders pile pressure on UK tories to stay in EPP group
Eleven EU prime ministers in a letter in December urged UK conservative leader David Cameron to refrain from withdrawing his MEPs from the biggest centre-right group in the European Parliament, it has emerged.
UK conservative plans to break away from the biggest faction in the European Parliament, the centre-right EPP-ED group, are being watched with concern by leading European politicians, according to the Telegraph.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
The French daily Le Monde on Thursday (23 February) published a letter by 11 prime ministers dating back to last December, urging urging Mr Cameron to drop the plan.
The letter was signed by the German chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as the leading personalities behind the initiative, joined by the leaders of the Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Malta, Slovenia, and Latvia, as well as the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
The initiative came at the peak of the heated debate among the British conservatives about their potential separation from the federalist-oriented European People's Party.
Currently, the UK conservatives form the lion's share of the European Democracy (ED) fraction in the EPP-ED.
But during his campaign to become conservative leader, David Cameron vowed to press for a breakaway of his MEPs from the group which he sees as too federalist for the eurosceptic tories.
A majority of tory MEPs is still said to be unconvinced by the initiative, however, despite London's pressure.
While a minority of the 26 conservative MEPs are strongly resisting the move, a larger number of parliamentarians are sceptical about the possibilities of finding potential partner parties in a new grouping.
The issue is set to come under the spostlight again at the EPP congress in late March, to be attended by top centre-right European leaders such as Ms Merkel and Mr Berlusconi.