page_title: European People's Party group
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: European People's Party group / History
caption_attribution_description: English: EPP share of votes in elections to the Eur. Parliament 1999-2019
context_page_description: The European People's Party group is a centre-right political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies from the member parties of the European People's Party. It sometimes includes independent MEPs and/or deputies from unaffiliated national parties. The EPP Group comprises politicians of Christian-democratic, conservative and liberal-conservative orientation.
  The European People's Party was officially founded as a European political party in 1976. However, the European People's Party group in the European Parliament has existed in one form or another since June 1953, from the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, making it one of the oldest European level political groups. It has been the largest political group in the European Parliament since 1999.
context_section_description: The Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (the predecessor of the present day European Parliament) first met on 10 September 1952 and the first Christian Democratic group was unofficially formed the next day, with Maan Sassen as President. The group held 38 of the 78 seats, two short of an absolute majority. On 16 June 1953 the Common Assembly passed a resolution enabling the official formation of political groups, and on 23 June 1953 the constituent declaration of the group was published and the group was officially formed.
  The Christian Democrat group was the biggest group at formation, but as time wore on it lost support and was the second-biggest group by the time of the 1979 elections. As the European Community expanded into the European Union, the dominant centre-right parties in the new member states were not necessarily Christian democratic, and the EPP (European People's Party, the pan-continental political party founded in 1976 which all group members are now affiliated to) feared being sidelined. To counter this, the EPP expanded its remit to cover the centre-right regardless of tradition and pursued a policy of integrating liberal-conservative parties.
  This policy led to Greek New Democracy and Spanish People's Party MEPs joining the EPP Group. The British Conservative Party and Danish Conservative People's Party tried to maintain a group of their own called the European Democrats (ED), but lack of support and the problems inherent in maintaining a small group forced ED's collapse in the 1990s, and its members crossed the floor to join the EPP Group. The parties of these MEPs also became full members of the EPP (with the exception of the British Conservatives who did not join the Party) and this consolidation process of the European centre-right throughout the 1990s with the acquisition of members from the Italian party Forza Italia. However, the consolidation was not unalloyed and a split emerged with the Eurosceptic MEPs who congregated in a subgroup within the group, also called the European Democrats (ED).
  Nevertheless, the consolidation held through the 1990s, assisted by the group being renamed to the European People's Party – European Democrats (EPP-ED) group, and after the 1999 European elections the EPP-ED reclaimed its position as the largest group in the Parliament from the Party of European Socialists (PES) group.
  Size was not enough, however: the group did not have a majority. It continued therefore to engage in the Grand Coalition (a coalition with the PES Group, or occasionally the Liberals) to generate the majorities required by the cooperation procedure under the Single European Act. This coalition has held, although occasionally the group adopts a government-opposition dynamic with the other groups, notably during the budget crisis when it opposed the PES and brought about the resignation of the Santer Commission.
  Meanwhile, the parties in the European Democrats subgroup were growing restless and finally left following the 2009 elections, when the Czech Civic Democratic Party and British Conservative party formed their own right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group on 22 June 2009, abolishing the European Democrats subgroup from that date. The EPP-ED Group reverted to its original name – the EPP Group – immediately.
  In the 7th European Parliament the EPP Group remains the largest parliamentary group with 275 MEPs. It is currently the only political group in the European parliament to fully represent its corresponding European political party, i.e. the European People's Party. The United Kingdom was the only member to not be represented in the group until 28 February 2018, when two MEPs suspended from the Conservative Party left the European Conservatives and Reformists and joined the EPP. The two MEPs later joined a breakaway political party in the UK, The Independent Group.
  After 12 member parties in the EPP called for Fidesz's expulsion or suspension, Fidesz's membership was suspended on 20 March 2019. The suspension applies only to the EPP but not to i
caption: EPP share of votes in elections to the Eur. Parliament 1999–2019
exif: {}