EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: EPP FEDERALISTS NAIL THEIR COLOURS TO THE MAST.

Thirty or so members of the European Parliament's European People's Party (EPP) decided on April 13 to create a cross-party group called the Schuman Group as a reference to Robert Schuman, one of the founding father's of the European Economic Community, so as to try to restore a sense or balance into the approach being championed by the group, which is chaired by the CDU member Hans-Gert Pottering. He is thought to be leaning too far to the right and being overly keen to go along with the Euro-scepticism of the British Conservatives and the Bavarian-based CSU. The Schuman Group is primarily composed of French, Belgian and Dutch MEPs, but its ideological tendency has already mustered the support of key EPP figures, such as the German Elmar Brok, who is representing the European Parliament within the context of the Inter-Governmental Conference, and the Parliament's former President, Jos-Maria Gil-Robles of Spain.

What sparked off the rebellion within the Christian Democrat ranks was the Austrian affair, which this week once again created further tensions in the EPP, when the Austrian President, Thomas Klestil, paid a visit to the Parliament. The willingness of the group's President Hans-Gert P"ttering, to adopt a soft attitude to the Conservative Party of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, gave rise to a minority, albeit firm, opposition within the group. FranAois Bayrou, head of the Union pour la Democratie Franaise (UFG), the main French component within the EPP, took the initiative of setting up the Schuman Group, after taking stock of the growing exasperation of his political friends. This exasperation is not only due to the alliance between the Austrian Conservative Party and J"rg Haider's Freedom Party. Numerous Italians, all the Benelux MEPs, a few Germans and many Spanish MEPs are increasingly annoyed at the growing British influence within the group and dismayed at the active and scathing Euroscepticism of the British Conservatives...