Constitution of technical group of independent MEPs is counter to regulations

29/07/1999 (Agence Europe)

The attempt by the Italian Radicals, elected on the Lista Bonino, to form a technical group of independent MEPs (TDI) has aborted. Three votes short of unanimity (1 Italian Radical and 1 UEN who voted against and 1 V-ALE who abstained), the constitutional committee, which is also responsible for EP procedure, said, on Wednesday, that the formation of this group runs counter to the regulation that provides for groups to be constituted according to political affinity. Confirming this provision of the rules of procedure, the committee implicitly rejected the amendment advocated by the TDI group. During the debate, several MEPs made it clear that qualifying as a "group" can only be based on common political convictions. Some also said that any formation which does not come within such logic would betray the wishes of voters. Radical member Olivier Dupuis, Belgian elected member of the Lista Bonino, defended the right of non-attached members to group together in order to enjoy the technical and financial benefits

reserved for political groups. Mr Dupuis had called on Tuesday evening for the discussion to be postponed until September, and had affirmed, speaking in Italian, that some "right-thinking people" had seen a problem in the formation of the technical group, although "we did not want to form a group" in the strict sense of the term. British Conservative Christopher Beazley hoped for his part that the constitutional committee would focus its work on the IGC, which is far more important, he said, than the "convenience of MEPs who didn't find an easy home" within the new Parliament.