Negotiating Power and Democracy in Political Group Formation in the European Parliament

European Parliament’s political groups are unique conglomerates of national party delegations formed after elections every five years. In this chapter, we develop a novel framework of four layers of political group formation and show that pervasive informal practices and norms in addition to the formal rules of the European Parliament (EP) shape political group formation processes. The four intertwined layers are characterised by differing democratic practices and encompass: (1) formal political group formation after EP elections, (2) internal political group formation via core functions, (3) internal political group formation via consolidation through policies and distributing policy field responsibilities and (4) changes to political group composition during the term. We draw on a unique set of 132 interviews with MEPs, political group and parliamentary staff conducted in 2018–2020 in the 8th and 9th EP. The findings show that there are similarities but also clear differences between political groups in relation to each of the four layers, which enhances our understanding of variations in negotiating power and democracy in the different political groups.