By Martin Banks - 12th March 2009
This is a what some of us have been fighting for for ten years
Martin Callanan
Joseph Daul has said it is "regrettable" that the British Conservatives are to leave the EPP-ED group after June's elections.
David Cameron's decision to pull his 27 Tories out of the European People's Party was confirmed after a meeting in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
Shadow Europe minister Mark Francois confirmed that he, along with shadow foreign secretary William Hague and MEP Timothy Kirkhope, the party's leader in parliament, had agreed the move with EPP chairman Joseph Daul.
The new group, expected to be called the European Conservatives, is likely to include representatives from countries including the Czech Republic and Poland.
It fulfils a long-standing pledge by the Tory leader David Cameron to sever the party's links with the 287-strong EPP.
However, Daul, a French MEP, told this website the decision was "regrettable".
"I very much regret this move because I consider the Tories to be an asset to the centre-right movement," he said. "Contrary to what they say, the 'big differences' between us are not as big as they suggest."
An EPP spokesman said the Tories will formally remain in the group until the June 8 elections but will then withdraw.
British Tory MEP Martin Callanan welcomed the move, saying it was "what some of us have been fighting for 10 years".
"Undoubtedly, the Lisbon treaty is the main reason for the split," he said. "The EPP favours the treaty while we do not."
However, his colleague James Ellis, one of the longest serving MEPs, disagreed.
"There were many in the group who would have preferred to remain in the EPP but this fulfils a long-standing pledge by David Cameron," said Ellis.
"There are grounds for optimism and I, like others, have signed up to this arrangement as part of our candidacies for the upcoming elections.
"I hope that new ideas will flourish in whatever new group is formed and give us the space to express our views on different issues. It has not been easy doing this for the past 18 months in the EPP."
UK Europe minister Caroline Flint warned that the Tories risked putting the UK "on the fringe of Europe".
"William Hague needs to come clean on who he has invited to join the Tories' fringe group in Europe, who has already turned him down and who he will pledge never to work with," she said.
"The Tories would put Britain on the fringe of Europe, hurting our standing in the world and undermining British businesses."
Her comments were echoed by Gary Titley, who until recently was leader of the UK's Socialist deputies in parliament.
He said, "This will undermine the position of both Conservatives and the UK in Europe. It condemns the Tories to the sidelines.
"A mainstream party like the Tories should be at the centre of influence and that will no longer be the case.This condemns the Tories to the sidelines."
Andrew Duff, leader of the Liberal Democrat European Parliamentary Party, said, "This is a sad day. The British Conservative party has left the mainstream of European politics and taken a turn down a blind alley.
"The Tories are the only important opposition party in Europe that rejects both the democratic strengthening of the EU as prescribed by the Lisbon treaty and the completion of the single market as symbolised by the euro. Winston Churchill must be spinning in his grave."
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