EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: POLITICAL GROUPS START TO FORM IN NEWLY-ELECTED PARLIAMENT.

ID.

Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde announced the creation of the group Independence and Democracy and the disappearance of the EDD. The new group, with 31 MEPs, is much larger than the old EDD, which only had 17 seats. It is made up of six national delegations. Besides Jens-Peter Bonde's June Movement, the group includes the UK Independence Party which has pledged to fight for the UK's withdrawal from the EU, Philippe de Villiers' Mouvement pour la France (MPF), and the Dutch ChristenUnie. New members include thirteen new MEPs from the League of Polish Families (LPR) and from Sweden's June List.

The new group should be co-chaired by Jens-Peter Bonde and UKIP's Nigel Frage for the first part of the legislature. Nils Ludgren of the June List and LPR's Maciej Giertych should take over in 2007. The alliance between the two families, one wanting to pull out of the European Union and the other anxious to stop the transfer of national powers to the EU, does not seem to bother Mr Bonde, for whom the crucial thing is to "win the next referendum, and therefore to bring together the MEPs who will vote No".

ELDR.

For the EDLR, there is still no final decision. On June 30, the Group Bureau agreed on a number of points. But the entire Group must formally approve any change, and this will meet on July 13. Several parties will join the Liberal Group, the French UDF, led by Marielle de Sarnez, all of the Italian 'La Margherita' - formally split between the Liberals and the Socialists - and the Italian Republican Party (PRI), as well as the Irish independent movement of Pat Cox. The two Italian parties belong to the...