EUROPEAN PEOPLE'S PARTY: EPP SEEKS TO SWELL ITS RANKS WITHOUT FOREGOING FEDERALIST AMBITIONS.

With 232 elected representatives, the EPP is the largest political group in the European Parliament. At the outset of the current legislature it modified its name to become the European People's Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED). The integration of the EDU into the Party's structures is a response to an organisational imperative but should also be seen in the light of the new Article 191 on the Statutes of European political parties introduced in the Nice Treaty. Founded in 1976 by eight Christian-Democratic parties, the EPP, Chaired by the former Belgian Prime Minister, the CVP's Wilfried Martens, now comprises 42 federated parties, including 22 from the candidate countries. It has already emerged as the largest prospective political party in an enlarged Europe. The EPP's Secretary-General Alejandro Agag argues that in the context of the forthcoming enlargement phase, parties with a European dimension will have a key role to play. The challenge of enlargement dominated political debate at the Congress with representatives of several candidate countries invited to address delegates. Discussions focused on a triple theme: the ratification of the Nice Treaty as a precursor to enlargement, the review of the EPP's doctrine in anticipation of an enlarged Europe, and the reconquest of power from the Party of European Socialists by the 2004 European elections in which some new Member States may participate.--The EPP took an unexpected step in its programme entitled "A Union of Values", in recognising the "existence of new family models and other lifestyle choices" other than the Christian notion of the family. A battle of amendments saw delegates square off against one another over whether to "recognise" or merely "note" these other lifestyle choices.--Nice Treaty called into question."It could have been better but could equally have been worse", was Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Maria Aznar's dispassionate verdict on the Nice Treaty, as he worked tirelessly behind the scenes in Berlin to convince EPP representatives not to obstruct its ratification. The former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the guest of honour at the Congress, suggested that whilst more might reasonably have been expected from Nice, European integration is a long-term process, the future success of which will depend upon avoiding the rejection of compromises reached by the European Council. This balanced assessment was taken up by Wilfried Martens who, expressing a widely-share...