List of European Parliament intergroups 2009-2014

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Update: Here is a list of intergroups (Word file) that I found on the parliament website.

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Via EurActiv France on Twitter I found Françoise Castex's post containing a list of the European Parliament Intergroups (see my post on EP intergroups for the last parliament) for the period 2009-2014:

• SME - Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise
• Ways of Saint James / Camino de Santiago
• Family and the Right of the Child & Bioethics
• Sky and Space / Ciel et Espace
• Youth Issues / Jeunesse [see my post on this group earlier this year]
• Urban
• Mountainous, Island and Sparsely Populated Regions & R.U.P (Regions that are extremely peripheral )
• Social Economy / Economie Sociale
• Sustainable Hunting, Biodiversity, Countryside Activities and Forests
• Extreme Poverty & Human Rights Fourth World European Committee
• Disability
• Tibet
• Climate Change & Bio Diversity & Sustainable Development
• Water / Wasser
• Baltic Europe
• Media (chaired by Jean-Marie Cavada, see press release)
• Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity
• Seas and Coastal Affairs / Mer et Zônes Côtieres
• Welfare & Conservation of Animals
• Trade Union Coordination Group
• New Media, Free Software and Open Information
• Society
• Tradition National Minorites, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual  & Transgender Rights – LGBT
• Public Services
• Western Sahara
• Anti-Racism & Diversity (Roma included)
• Wine, Fruits and Vegetables, Tradition and Quality Food

Update (15:40): pstrempel remarked on Twitter that the list might not be complete since he doesn't see, for example, the Federalist Intergroup.

Update (29 January): The Federalist Intergroup has been rejected as we learn from Le Taurillon.

The next task will be to find out presidents of the groups, see whether they have websites, and how influential or how influenced they are.

(last update: 21 Jan 2010)

An Intergroup on Youth Issues in the European Parliament?

European Parliament intergroups are a rather unknown but still interesting subject for non-insiders to the European Parliament or the Brussels bubble, which for me is proved by the interest my article on intergroups (covering the last European Parliament) is still raising.

European youth groups and some MEPs, after the success of making 2011 the "European Year of Volunteering", are now pushing for the creation of an Intergroup on Youth Issues in the European Parliament to get more influence.

Part of their effort is displayed in the following video (via letzi from the European Youth Forum):

Parlement européen - Intergroupe jeunesse
Hochgeladen von damienabad. - Sieh die neuesten Nachrichten Videos an.

But here, as for any other intergroup, and despite the fact that I support the cause, the question will be: Necessary co-ordination or just hidden lobbyism? - and the answers will have to be given by the participating person.

European Parliament Intergroups - Necessary co-ordination or just hidden lobbyism? - updated

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UPDATE (2009-12-09): For a list of 2009-2014 intergroups, there is a more recent article!

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Although I am quite passionate about EU-related topics, I am not an EU-insider. So while blogging, I am still learning.

Today, reading a scientific article on NGO participation in EU law-making, I stumbled over a term I haven't heard before:

"Intergroup"

Apparently, intergroups

"are informal bodies of MEPs with membership from different political groups from within the European Parliament. While intergroups are not considered organs of the European Parliament, officially recognised intergroups are resourced by the Parliament with meeting space and translation facilities."

(corporateeurope.org; PDF)

D. Chabanet calls them "a blind spot in parliamentary life", and in line with Corporate Europe the argumentation highlights these intergroups, which in general seem to be organising pre-decision and issue-related co-ordination across political groups, as (possible and sometimes obvious) room for lobbyist activities and uncontrollable external funding.

It is also made clear that the regulation on intergroups introduced by the heads of the parliamentary groups in 1999 (here in a .doc version from 2004), which was intended to make their work more transparent, led to less transparency, because several of those groups withdraw from the inside of the Parliament and continued working in the unregulated space outside its buildings.

These intergroups received only minor attention in a 2008 resolution of the parliament on transparency and lobbying, and in debates taking place in the time before this resolution was adopted, it looks like intergroups are rather defended by MEPs than criticised.

A list of groups I could find in EP documents since 2004 available online (supplemented by some found via internet research and in this document):

• Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup (Chair: Claude Moraes)
  
• ATD Quart Monde (Fourth World Intergroup, the oldest group) (Chair: Íñigo Méndez de Vigo)
  
• Baltic Europe Intergroup (Christopher Beazley)
  
• Cinema, Audiovisual policy and Cultural Diversity Intergroup (Chair: Ruth Hieronymi)
  
• Disability Intergroup (Chair: Richard Howitt)
  
• European Constitution Intergroup
  
• Gay and Lesbian Rights Intergroup (Chair: Michael Cashman
  
• Intergroup for Animal Welfare (Chair: Neil Parish)
  
• Intergroup for traditional national minorities (President Csaba Sándor TABAJDI)
  
• Intergroup on Ageing (several Co-Chairs, inter alia: Mihael Brejc)
  
• Intergroup on Bioethics (Chair: Hiltrud Breyer)
  
• Intergroup on Careers
  
• Intergroup on Conservation and Sustainable Development (Chair: Struan Stevenson)
  
• Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood (Chair Marie Panayotopoulos)
  
• Intergroup on Health and Consumer Protection (Chairs: Pilar Ayuso Gonzalez, Beatrice Patrie)
  
• Intergroup on Hunting (President Michl Ebner)
  
• Intergroup on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) (Chair: Othmar Karas)
  
• Intergroup on Tibet (Chair: Thomas Mann)
  
• Intergroup on Volunteering
  
• Intergroup on Wine (Viticulture-Tradition-Quality Intergroup) (Chair Astrid Lulling)
  
• Land Use and Food Policy Intergroup (Chair: Paulo Casaca)
  
• Rugby League Intergroup
  
• Social Economy Intergroup (Chairs: Elisa Ferreira, Mario Mauro)
  
• SOS Democracy Intergroup (Chair: Jens-Peter Bonde
  
• Sports Intergroup (Chair: Chris Heaton-Harris)
  
• Trade Union Coordination Group; formerly Trade Union Intergroup (Chair: Stephen Hughes
  
• Tourism Intergroup (Chair: Margie Sudre)
  
• Urban (Housing) Intergroup (Chair Jean Marie Beaupuy)
  
• Informal intergroup Friends of India
  

The latest intergroup to be formed (for the next term) seems to be on on the Danube river.

This is all I could find through a comparatively quick search on the websites of the European Parliament, but the 2006 report by Corporate Europe linked above names even more.

The topic deserves follow-up, in particular because I have seen that a number of these groups have websites (as the one on hunting), which need to be further analysed. I suppose we can also find more detailed information in other sources and with a more refined research method.

If anyone has more details, hints, remarks, suggestions, I would be more than ready to take these up and to continue this in the future.

(Updated with some additional groups, several names of Chairpersons, and links on 07 and 10 May 2009)