European People's Party

The aim of this PhD thesis is to review and re-envisage the foundation and development of the European People’s Party (EPP). This Thesis is based on primary research data aiming to inspire the academic discussion on the Europarties within the European integration context. Starting from its creation and early-days period, in the 1970s, as the ‘party’ of the Christian Democratic parties from member states of the European Communities and going through the subsequent integration of political parties from Western and, later on, Eastern European countries, in the 1980s and 1990s to its status at the early 2000s.
The originally founded ‘Christian Democratic organisation’ was transformed to a political family, or a ‘network’, of centre-right parties including Christian democratic, conservative and like minded parties. We will attempt to understand why this change took place, under what reasons, dependent and independent variables, normative conditions, within the historical context. We will follow the timeline of events in the wider context of the European integration that has been underlining, historically, our subject.
Our Thesis is structured in two axes: A timeline of ten chapters on the one hand and four hypotheses that we are putting forward. We have also constructed and put in annex information that can be helpful for further research. Highlights are on Annex 8 the list of contents that we have reconstructed from the historical archive of the EPP. First we walk through the historical timeline:
In “Chapter 1: History” we start from the years preceding to the creation of the EPP. We go back to the origins of transnational party cooperation walking through to the discussions in the 1970s for launching new European party federations. We took time to explore not just the EPP historical archive (Codification IX-007-XXX) but also the EUCD archive (IX-004-XXX) and even some volumes from the NEI historical archive (IX-002-XXX) mainly to get familiar with the level of integration of the earlier organisations and historical period in the 1950s and the 1960s.
In “Chapter 2: the creation of the EPP” the reader will find presentation of historical archive accumulated from both archive documents and interviews. We aim to better understand all the aspects behind the creation of the EPP in 1976. We reveal the underlining factors cultivating the desire for a new political organisation, the map of interest of the key players and why it finally kicked off the ground in 1976.
In “Chapter 3: the enlargement of the 1980s” we move on the 1980s, the change of leadership twice in the EPP, in 1984 and 1987, the enlargement of the EPP with new parties from western Europe and the talks about opening up towards the Conservatives.
In “Chapter 4: the opening up of Eastern Europe” we discuss the opening up of the EPP towards the countries of the former Eastern block in central and eastern Europe and the major historical events of the collapse of communism and the emerging new European countries. 
In “Chapter 5: the enlargement to the conservative parties” we explore the opening up to more conservative parties in the 1990s, especially towards the 1994 enlargement, the difficult Scandinavian conservative parties.
In “Chapter: 6 Merger with the EUCD and the EDU” we follow the developments between the EPP and its sister orgsanisations. We put forward all the evidence that demonstrates the core strategy of the EPP to streamline the cooperation in the centre right into one single organisation despite the successful history and record of the EDU and the ‘parent organisation’ background of the EUCD.
In “Chapter 7: Understanding and assessing the EPP enlargement” we touch upon the Europeanisation concept, particularly in Eastern Europe and we contending that it has had different implications to different parties from different countries. Aiming to address these phenomena, we are introducing the term “inhomogenus Europeanisation” to capture this diversity of effects in the political reality of the actors involved. We are further assessing the enlargement beyond Christian Democracy in the context of its historical decline.
Finally, we are reviewing the role of the key protagonists and the German actors in particular, who from a minority position to the right side of the EPP spectrum in the 1970s and 80s it became the dominant power in the centre of the EPP from the 1990s hitherto.
In “Chapter 8: The EPP beyond 1999” we are discussing the developments in the 2000s, the years of reaping the fruits of its enlargement strategy in terms of its parliamentary and party size. After the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, where the EU moved from 15 to 27 member states the EPP continued its restructuring and repositioning. In every single country of the EU enlargement, the EPP had already acquired the most important center-right political party in its ranks.
In “Chapter 9: Europarties and European integration” we are discussing the role of European parties within the European Union institutions and decision making. We are also discussing the widely debated concept of politicization of the Union from the perspective of European parties. This discussion is relevant today in the period of the ongoing financial trouble in the Eurozone and how the crisis has affected the role of the European parties.

Finally, in “Chapter 10: Summary and end remarks” we are putting together the findings from our research findings and secondary sources reading and drawing conclusions on our topic.

The second axis of this work, running parallel to the Timeline, is to contemplate four hypotheses. Each one of them has come out of the primary research for the historical period involved, while it does revisit aspects of what we know today.
The first hypothesis focuses on the foundation period in the 1970s where we will present evidence that the EPP was not founded as a loose federation of parties that would evolve over time and parallel to the gradual integration of the European institutions. Insofar the European Communities did evolve gradually from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s following Treaty reform that delegated more and more powers and competences to the Community level, there is a broader understanding that the EPP followed a similar pattern of integration. We are challenging this universal idea with facts and figures from the historical archive that are probably brought about for the first time.
The second hypothesis is related to the enlargement of the EPP towards non-Christian democratic parties. We will present that the original idea was not to enlarge to parties from other, albeit neighboring, political traditions. Instead, the original expectation was that these parties would adopt, would adhere to Christian Democracy. The idea of enlargement did not exist in the EPP culture and language during its early days in the 1980s and even early 1990s! Surprising or not, prospective members cooperated with this attitude and declared their adherence to the Christian Democratic ideals, regardless of their differing political culture and diverging national context. This applies to parties from both western and eastern Europe.
The third hypothesis reveals the strategy of the EPP towards its enlargement during the 1980s and 1990s, in particular as regards the emerging of new democracies in the central and eastern parts of Europe after the collapse of Communism. Opposite to what we knew up to now the EPP designed and implemented an active policy of proliferation of Christian Democracy towards the new countries and invested significant human and material resources in this direction. We have had very little information before about this but the evidence we bring in is strong and sound. Given that Christian Democracy was already in decline in western Europe in the late 1980s and the early 1990s this hypothesis says a lot about the culture and the internal dynamics of the EPP. The strategy originated and was inspired by the case of Spain in the late 1980s with the creation of the Partido Popular. Following Spain, the most difficult case of the British Conservatives was explored with a long-lasting project that took over two years to complete with the 1992 agreement between the EPP group and the European Democratic Group in the European Parliament. From the early 1990s, a large project of going east was deployed towards the new democracies.
Last but not least, our fourth hypothesis contemplates the comparative perspective of the EPP today with its early days. Contrary to what is widely accepted, even from skeptics, the EPP today is not more integrated than it was in the early days. The small number of members, the high degree of ideological cohesion and the core ideals of Christian Democracy were the three key factors that, aggregated together, created a highly integrated status. Especially given the broader loose integration of the European Communities. This hypothesis can have significant implications that challenge traditional theories' content about the progress of integration.

En 1989, la chute du mur de Berlin provoquait un bouleversement sans précédent dans l'histoire européenne. De part et d'autre d'un continent longtemps divisé s'affirmait l'ambition de construire une communauté de valeurs. Un processus de démocratisation était entamé. Pour plusieurs pays d'Europe centrale, cette démocratisation est aujourd'hui bien avancée.
Dans les études qui concernent le processus démocratique en Europe centrale et la coopération paneuropéenne, les relations multiples entre partis politiques et fédérations de partis sont très peu abordées Or, les partis politiques restent les acteurs premiers de la démocratie. La démocratisation en Europe centrale l'atteste.
Cet ouvrage aborde de manière inédite les formes multiples de relations entre partis politiques occidentaux et centre-orientaux. L'impact et les fonctions de ces rapports sont analysés et détaillés par pays et par famille politique. L'ouvrage est le fruit d'une collaboration entre scientifiques d'Europe occidentale et centrale et acteurs de terrain.

This article discusses a new phenomenon that has arisen in connection with democratic backsliding in some EU member states: The contribution of European political parties to democratic backsliding. It focuses on the European People's Party's efforts to protect the Hungarian government, and the European Conservatives and Reformists party's permissive acceptance of the Polish government's attacks on democracy and the rule of law, analysing these forms of behaviour as a form of complicity in democratic backsliding. In a second step, the article examines the existing possibilities and normative justification for sanctioning European political parties that make a complicit contribution to democratic backsliding.

At a time when most national parties in Europe are losing members , parties at the European level, or Europarties, have introduced membership for individuals. This article is the first to investigate, compare, and explain the individual membership of Europarties. It focuses on the rights of the individual members to participate in the formulation of policies and the selection of leadership candidates. For this purpose, the article develops an index that charts the participatory rights. In doing so, it highlights a high degree of variation between the Europarties. It argues that these differences can be explained through a combination of four factors: the Europarties' electoral successes; the attitudes of the national member parties towards individual membership; the motivation and activism of the individual members; and Europarty funding rules. The article argues that if Europarties want to be seen as 'real' parties, they should grant their grassroots members real participa-tory powers.

On 12 September, the European Parliament voted to pursue disciplinary action against Hungary for breaching the EU’s core values. Fabio Wolkenstein explains that the European People’s Party (EPP) has faced a difficult balancing act in relation to Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, with many EPP members critical of Fidesz, but the EPP itself relying on Fidesz MEPs for support in the Parliament. However, the fact that a majority of EPP MEPs voted against Fidesz on 12 September does not mean the EPP is ready to abandon the party: the consequences of the vote are likely to be minimal in the short-term, and the EPP’s leadership may simply have sought to appease Orbán’s critics within their ranks without facing up to the costs of a radical break.

Geçtiğimiz hafta, %93 oyla Avrupa Halk Partisi (İng. European People’s Party, EPP) başkanlığına, tek aday olan Avrupa Birliği (AB) Konseyi Başkanı Donald Tusk getirilmiştir. Avrupa’da tarafsız yaklaşımı ile ön plana çıkan Donald Tusk’ı EPP Başkanlığı dolayısıyla tebrik ediyoruz.

AVİM olarak, Almanya’nın Hristiyan Sosyal Birliği Partisi (Christian Social Union – CSU) milletvekili ve Avrupa Halk Partisi Başkanı Manfred Weber’in Avrupa Komisyonu Başkanı seçilmek için Türkiye’yi hedef alan sözlerine tepkilerimiz daha önce çeşitli yorumlarımızda ifade edilmişti. Weber, seçim günü yaklaştıkça Türkiye’ye yönelik sert tutumunu artırarak devam etmektedir.