By Martin Banks - 14th July 2011
The French MD is the party that is most likely to vote against the group line
VoteWatch
The ALDE group is still on the "winning side" in parliamentary votes more than any other political grouping.
However, the EPP, which is easily parliament's biggest group is catching up thanks to increasing internal voting discipline.
These are two of the main findings of a report by the group VoteWatch, which did an analysis of voting patterns in the first half of 2011.
It said the largest national party delegations in the EPP are "generally positioned" in the political centre of their group but that MEPs from the French UMP and Italian PdL are slightly to the left of their colleagues.
The German CDU holds the balance of power in the EPP group, while the Hungarian Fidesz is the party that votes against the group line most often, according to the VoteWatch study.
The findings were presented by leading academic Simon Hix, of the London School of Economics, at a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday.
Hix said the ideological positions of the national party delegations in the S&D group range from the French PS on the left to the British Labour Party on the right.
He said, "The German SPD holds the balance of power, while UK MEPs are most likely to vote against the group line.
"In the ALDE group, the French MD and Italian IdV are furthest to the left, while the German FDP is the furthest to the right."
Hix said the balance of power within ALDE seems to be held by two rather centrally-positioned smaller parties, the Romanian PNL and Belgian VLD.
"The French MD is the party that is most likely to vote against the group line," said Hix.
The study says that over the last six months, increasing "left-right competition" has become noticeable on the issues of civil liberties, justice and home affairs, economic and monetary affairs, industry, research and energy and international trade issues.
The report examines the voting behaviour of political groups, and national parties within those political groups, since the beginning of the current parliamentary term.
The group used voting data up to and including the 6-9 June 2011 plenary session.
A total of 1896 recorded ('roll-call') votes have been cast since the beginning of the current parliamentary term in July 2009 (including 545 votes since 1 January 2011), and all are included in its statistics.
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