PES Name Change?

So the new European Parliament is going to be a bit of an Alphabet soup. According to The Lobby blog the Party of European Socialist Grouping in the Parliament is going to change its name to the “Alliance of Socialists and Democrats” or ASDE for short (Not to be confused with ASDA). So why the change?

The name change is to suit the Italian Partito Democratico who in the last parliament where split between PES and ALDE. This will shore up the PES ASDE numbers by giving them 21 extra MEPs.

There was some opposition from some MEPs who didnt want to lose the Socialist branding, but after the election results they look less likely to stick to their guns.

So the Groupings in the next parliament could be as follows:

• EPP
• ASDE
• ALDE
• Greens-EFA
• GUE/NGL
• Ind/Dem (maybe)
• European Conservatives (Or similar name)
• Far-Right grouping (BNP are trying to set up a grouping)

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Tags: ALDE, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ASDE, BNP, EPP, European Greens–European Free Alliance, European Union, Independence/Democracy, Member of the European Parliament, Parties, Party of European Socialist, Politics