The goal of this book is to highlight the role and significance of European Political Parties at a time when the EU is engaged in a process of constitutionalisation. The European political parties are little-known even amongst those who study European law and European politics. They are often confused with the party groups in the European Parliament. The book studies the origins and significance of the supranational European Political Parties, which as parties of parties (members are national parties from and beyond the Member State) have sought to establish themselves as key players within the EU institutional architecture. It concentrates on four key themes: the institutional and organizational forms which the parties have taken on, most recently as a result of the European Party Statute Regulation passed in 2003 and the 2007 Amending Regulation; within the parties themselves, the ideas and streams of influence which contribute to their effectiveness; their contribution to 'forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union' as laid out in the Reform Treaty; and the enlargement of the Parties to include members from the new Member States, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
The book concludes that in the wake of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, the European Political Parties which have been through a decade of institutionalization now face their greatest challenge: the need to justify their existence in light of those developments.
