EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A new generation of MEPs will be trying to find their way around the famously labyrinth-like European Parliament building in Strasbourg this week as the constitutive session of the assembly gets under way. Almost half (49.8%) of the 736 deputies have been elected for the first time while women will represent just over a third of the assembly, which is also host to eight former prime ministers and boasts two octogenarians. The main buzz in the corridors will be one of deal-making as deputies divide up committee membership, firm up political alliances and formalise the political groups in parliament. There are 160 national groups represented within the parliament the vast majority of which are housed in the seven political groups ranging from the centre-right European People Party (265 MEPs) to the smallest, the newly-formed eurosceptic and right wing Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) with 30 members. Just 28 MEPs are not non-attached, including the deputies from Britain's far-right BNP and the France's National Front.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A new generation of MEPs will be trying to find their way around the famously labyrinth-like European Parliament building in Strasbourg this week as the constitutive session of the assembly gets under way.
Almost half (49.8%) of the 736 deputies have been elected for the first time while women will represent just over a third of the assembly, which is also host to eight former prime ministers and boasts two octogenarians.
The main buzz in the corridors will be one of deal-making as deputies divide up committee membership, firm up political alliances and formalise the political groups in parliament.
There are 160 national groups represented within the parliament the vast majority of which are housed in the seven political groups ranging from the centre-right European People Party (265 MEPs) to the smallest, the newly-formed eurosceptic and right wing Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) with 30 members.
Just 28 MEPs are not non-attached, including the deputies from Britain's far-right BNP and the France's National Front.
736 freshly elected members of the European Parliament will hold their first plenary session on Tuesday in Strasbourg. The assembly is expected to test its new political muscles by postponing the endorsement of the EU commission head. AFP - The freshly-elected European parliament meets Tuesday for its first plenary session, keen to test the new political muscle it will develop once the EU's new reform package enters force. In a short session, starting in earnest in Strasbourg, the 736-member assembly will elect its president, but not the head of the EU's executive arm, the European Commission. Despite pressure to vote this week on the return of Jose Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as president of the commission, the lawmakers have taken a stand and postponed any endorsement until the autumn.
AFP - The freshly-elected European parliament meets Tuesday for its first plenary session, keen to test the new political muscle it will develop once the EU's new reform package enters force. In a short session, starting in earnest in Strasbourg, the 736-member assembly will elect its president, but not the head of the EU's executive arm, the European Commission. Despite pressure to vote this week on the return of Jose Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as president of the commission, the lawmakers have taken a stand and postponed any endorsement until the autumn.
