The European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists: Government and Opposition?

Abstract

Since the introduction of direct elections for the European Parliament, the politics of this institution have presented a very low degree of adversarial confrontations amongst the two major European parties, the EPP and the PES. In the last round of elections, however, there have been signs of substantial change in direction of a more direct electoral confrontation between the PES and the EPP. According to the author, both the party manifestos and the strong political activity that preceded the nomination of the new President of the Commission signal the emergence of a sui-generis government-opposition relation between the two major parties in the European Parliament. This, still far from resembling the spirit of national politics, may represent the beginning of a new and more dynamic political confrontation around the European institutions.