Brussels, 2 November 1999

Dear colleague,

The growing number of deputies, nationalities, and languages in the European Parliament, and the increase in the parliaments functions and responsibilities, undoubtedly require an improvement in its organisational capacities. However, this requirement cannot be satisfied by sacrificing the founding principles of any parliament, as a place in which each and every deputy contributes to the decision-making process, in which each and every deputy, without any restrictions, can work, debate and vote according only to the dictates of his or her conscience.

It is only by bearing in mind these founding principles that we can and must read and understand the organisational procedures and instruments that parliaments have adopted over the course of time. This is true above all of the question of the formation of groups according to affinity, now known as parliamentary groups. If these groups correspond to a logic of efficiency and economy of work, it is for the efficiency and economy of single parliamentarians and absolutely not for that of the parliament. In other words, it is the parliamentarians who choose to be part of a group in order to be able, in collaboration with their chosen colleagues, to carry out their parliamentary work. It is not the task of the parliament as such to decide that, in order to function better as an institution, it must be based on the association of deputies in groups. To accept this notion would be to undermine the very principle of representation.

Over time, however, through its regulations, habits and conventions the European Parliament has produced a series of rules by virtue of which the parliamentary groups, or rather their executives, have become the focus of all parliamentary activity and thus the de facto depositories of democratic representation and all political initiative. In substance, the European Parliament, once a Parliament of parliamentarians organised in groups, has turned into a parliament of groups which direct the parliamentarians.

In particular, the rights of the single deputies, the only true depositories of political and electoral representation, have been slowly but inexorably squashed in favour of the rights and the powers of the political groups and their executives. This reduction of the rights of single deputies has also taken place in some national parliaments, but in the European Parliament it has gone beyond the limits within which it is possible for the single deputies to take an effective part in the proceedings of the parliament, and thus to carry out their function as elected representatives.

The various ways in which single rights are safeguarded in the national parliaments in which parliamentary groups exist can be summed up in the following categories:

Parliaments in which one or two deputies can constitute a group, as happens in Denmark, Finland, Holland, the Belgian Senate, and Portugal;

Parliaments in which there are non-aligned or independent groups, which enjoy the same rights as the other parliamentary groups, as in Italy, Spain, Greece and Eire, or similar rights, as in France with the administrative union of non-aligned members;

Parliaments in which, by means of various formulas, the equivalent of non-aligned deputies can associate or be associated ex officio, as happens in Germany or in France, or can form technical groups, as in Luxembourg.

In any case, in each of the legislative and representative chambers of the member states there are minimum rights for single parliamentarians: these rights are constituted, as well as by financial and administrative assistance that is common to all members of parliament, by the right to put questions, the right to speak, and above all by the right to propose legislation and amendments in plenary sessions, the main place of parliamentary activity. In each parliament, members have the right to present and ask for amendments to draft resolutions. Even the procedures of the British House of Commons, based on the division between government and opposition, ensure that all members have equal rights: by means of the private members system, all MPs can put forward bills independent of the government programme (this was the case with the abortion act, to cite a particularly significant example).

From this rapid survey of the national parliaments, we can see that in 13 out 15 cases non-aligned or independent deputies have the same rights as the members of groups.

In the European Parliament, on the other hand, the restriction of the rights of individual deputies is such that the individual deputy is denied those minimum rights that lie at the very basis of parliamentary activity: members of the European Parliament can only vote in plenary sessions, since they are denied the opportunity to carry out any role in terms of the presentation of legislation or amendments. Moreover, with the exception of the election of the President, the groups play an oligopolistic role with regard to the dividing-up of the institutional offices, the elections of vice-presidents, of quaestors, from the presidents of the commissions and the interparliamentary delegations, the choice of rapporteurs on the various issues, the presentation of emergency resolutions, the definition of the agenda of proceedings, and the determination of the duration of speeches. In addition, the groups also benefit from logistic, operative and financial advantages. As we can see, therefore, the activity of single

deputies is practically impossible outside this bureaucratised structure, which offers a series of indispensable services in exchange for what is called group discipline.

If all this is true for each deputy, it is even more evident for non-aligned deputies, who are denied all parliamentary rights (including those granted through the political groups), in particular in plenary sessions, and who do not enjoy the same advantages as their colleagues in terms of financial and administrative benefits, staff, and so on.

This bureaucratic, anti-democratic drift is not inevitable! The creation of the non-aligned group, aimed at ensuring minimum rights for those parliamentarians who do not belong to the political groups, is one of the many initiatives that must be implemented in order to halt the bureaucratic drift of the European Parliament and to turn it finally into a Parliament of parliamentarians. We will write to you at a later date on the subject of the other reforms, many of which are equally necessary and urgent, beginning with the question of the désengorgement of the proceedings of plenary sessions with the attribution of legislative functions to the commissions, and the renunciation of the chance to legislate on matters of clearly regulatory nature, and consequently to make plenary sessions once again a place of genuine debate.

In the meantime we would be grateful for your invaluable support for the creation of the non-aligned group, inviting you to sign the amendment to Article 30 of the Regulations. We take the opportunity to thank you in advance for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Bonino Marco Pannella

Marco Cappato Gianfranco DellAlba Benedetto Della Vedova

Olivier Dupuis Maurizio Turco