EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: SENIOR EPP MEPS HAVE DOUBTS OVER TORIES QUITTING GROUP.

David Cameron, who was elected leader of the Conservative Party on December 6 by a huge majority, has said publicly on numerous occasions that he would take the 27 Conservative MEPs out of the European Peoples Party European Democrats group because the majority of its members support oever closer uniono.

But senior members of the European Peoples Party said on December 7 that the Conservatives might not leave the group. They said that Mr Cameron might ask his new shadow Foreign Secretary, expected to be former Conservative leader William Hague, to implement the decision to quit the EPP-ED. However, sources in the group said that at this point Mr Hague might negotiate with the current EPP-ED leader, German Hans-Gert Pottering, new terms for remaining part of the group, the largest in the European Parliament with 267 members.

Quitting the EPP-ED, which is being requested by around seven Eurosceptic Tory MEPs, would mean that the Party of European Socialists would become the largest group in the Parliament.

However, leaving the group is strongly opposed by the majority of the British Conservatives. Their hopes of staying in the EPP-ED received a boost on December 6 with the re-election of Timothy Kirkhope, a moderate Europhile Tory, as leader of the national delegation with 18 votes. His Eurosceptic rival, Chris Heaton-Harris, received only seven votes.

Mr Heaton-Harris strongly advocates leaving the group. He told Europe Information that he expected David Cameron to carry out his pledge to leave the group and that he was confident that William Hague would do so. He pointed out that when Mr Hague was Tory leader he had negotiated an agreement with the EPP on staying within the group, creating a separate grouping, the European Democrats, who have the right to vote differently to EPP members while keeping...