The European Parliament might not need party politics: It could be (for starters) a Parliament in 19th century tradition and play a much more useful role in the development of the EU.

As an outside observer writing on government's co-ordination processes, I do not deal extensively with the role of the European Parliament in European politics. It's there, it can in some (with the new treaty now in many more cases) make the governments' lives tough. I used to think that the European commission should become kind of a European government controlled by the EP and elected by majority vote. But many national Parliaments do not take their controlling role very seriously anymore (if they ever did). Take a look at the German Bundestag, which passes regularly laws that are declared void by the Constitutional Court; Parliamentarians say that they cannot discuss all the laws they decide, especially if they have to decide about European regulations.

But the national Parliaments do have the right to control and elect the government (or at least they pass the laws). Even these constitutional preconditions for government control are missing on the European level. Party politics seem far away. I still think this is an issue that makes European politics slow and undemocratic; the people do elect their parliamentarians -- if there is a political party with a program, it's easier to choose. So, from a co-ordination point of view, this would be the way to go. The problem is: It seems quite unrealistic that there will be any move to European parties in the short run.

An article in the IHT, entitled "European Parliament flexes new muscle" (5.3.2010), quoted Richard Corbett how wrote, that the EP is a Parliament in the 19th-century sense: It does not rubber stamp government proposals. Okay, the last phrase has to be supplemented with an "always," it does not always rubber stamp. But there is a way to proceed in this concept.

The US government already noticed that it is useful to talk with the Parliamentarians; European foreign policy certainly will change (and already has, cf. Swift). So perhaps we simply have to wait for fifty or a hundred years till the European Parliament develops in the same way as our national Parliaments. I'd rather see some party politics on the European level in the next ten years...