30/05/2014
A little-known aspect of the European Parliament is the way MEPs are encouraged to join political groups â proto trans-European political parties - the most famous of which is the European Peoples' Party (EPP), to which the Conservatives used to belong.
The qualifying requirements are set out in the
Rules of Procedure, with each group needing a minimum of 25 MEPs drawn from a quarter of the member states, currently seven.
Each group then appoints a president who becomes a member of the powerful "Conference of Presidents". It decides on the business of the parliament and, all importantly, allocates speaking time in the plenary sessions. It is Farage's status as a group president which has given him his unrivalled opportunity to confront van Rompuy and Barroso, producing his
YouTube "hits".
The other main attraction, of course, is the money. Some
six percent of the European Parliament's â¬1.756 billion budget for this year is allocated to group funding. This works out at roughly â¬105 million, or a "dowry" of â¬140,000 per MEP.
Thus, with its 24 MEPs, each on their own individual â¬95,000 salaries and generous expenses, UKIP stands to gain another â¬3.4 million in group funds, available in cash and kind, as long as it can recruit MEPs from six other countries to join it under the same political umbrella.
The money has to be used for staff â giving the group president enormous patronage and power - offices and group activities, plus the obligatory chauffeur-driven limousine for the personal use of the president. He is also furnished with a luxury office suite complete with leather sofas and a lavish
en-suite bathroom, as well as the best, most stylish executive toys that our money can buy.
Having enjoyed the privileges of group president for the last five years, our "Nige" may be a "man of the people" back home. But in Brussels and Strasbourg, President Farage lives exceedingly high on the hog, and has got used to the lifestyle.
The trouble is, as
Mary Ellen Synon points out, keeping groups going in Brussels is a complicated game, especially when the Conservatives get stuck in with their own spoilers, and try to attract potential recruits to their own European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group as a way of cutting Farage down to size.
Where some pundits might have been caught out, though, is in the pre-election assumption that there was a Europe-wide "eurosceptic surge", the impression being given that this was in some way unified, making UKIP part of a larger movement.
As we have been at pains to
point out, there is nothing even approaching unity between these disparate parties and no possibility whatsoever that they could form a single group.
Not least, European Parliamentary rules require that MEPs in a group "accept by definition that they have political affinity", which is something which Farage simply cannot do with Marine Le Pen's
Front National and many others.
Thus, it is inevitable that the 140 or so MEPs who could potentially form a single dissident group will be fragmented, split between three or even four groups, with some being prepared to stay non-aligned. Even as non-aligned, they get "group" money, and a secretariat, but they do not get the kudos of their own president - or the personal chauffeur-driven cars.
This puts Le Pen
in poll position, ready to Hoover up some of the MEPs that might otherwise have opted for membership of President Farage's Europe of Freedom and Democracy group. Already, she seems to have attracted Lega Nord, formerly with Farage, and she was seen sitting alongside Wilders at a meeting in Brussels (above).
On the other hand, Farage has been seen making overtures to Grillo the clown (picture, top), who has 17 MEPs to offer, and while the UKIP leader might have a little difficulty keeping his group together, he is an old hand at the game and knows, if the price is right, there will always be enough MEPs from the 60 or so up for grabs to throw in their lot with UKIP. And as long as he has his group, the money keeps rolling in.
What people also need to appreciate is that, while these group games are currently getting some profile, they go on all the year round, with the larger groups forever seeking to collapse the minnows and bring them down.
Farage, therefore, will need to recruit enough MEPs to give him a safety margin, otherwise he stands to lose his posh office and patronage, his personal limousine and his generous speaking time allowance. Then he would be just ordinary "Nige", and the money would be dispersed to individual MEPs, under their personal control.
That would never do for a man of the people, and with â¬17 million up for grabs over this parliamentary session, President Farage has a great deal to play for.
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