Is there a political coalition within the European Parliament and does it matter?

What is it about?

Consensus is a key characteristic of the European Union. In the European Parliament (EP), most legislation is adopted by a grand coalition between the left and the right political groups. While this cooperation has always been informal, the EPP (Christian-democrats) and S&D (socialists) groups agreed on a formal political coalition after the 2014 European elections. For the first time in the EP’s history, this grand coalition was based on a policy programme negotiated by the two groups’ leadership. Based on the analysis of votes, his paper aims to understand the impact of this deal on actual behaviour of the Members of the EP. We find that the 2014 coalition deal has encouraged Christian-democrats and socialists members to cooperate more, especially on issues on which they usually do it the least.

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Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash

Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper is important, because it shows that the existence of a political agreement within the European Parliament is not just symbolic. Indeed, one could think that it just mirrors the will of the two main political groups to work together, and that it has no concrete impact on their behaviour. However, our data shows that the agreement had an impact, and that it favoured the cooperation of the two main groups on topics that are more controversial. The capacity of the two main political groups of the European Parliament to work together is an important issue, as their share of seats in the house is constantly declining – mainly to the benefit of more Eurosceptic groups. What is at stake, is the possibility, in the future, for the European Parliament to continue to support the action of the Commission.

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