Dr. Sonia Piedrafita:

That is a problem. European Union political parties are big alliances of national delegations. Indeed, the weight of these national delegations in the EU political parties is very heavy. The delegations from the big member states, of course, have stronger power than those of smaller member states. The initiative dealing with the legal status of European political parties could help because they would have a legal EU status. Perhaps the next thing is that European political parties have their own affiliates and will not come through national delegations.

The fact that in the future 25 Members of the European Parliament can be chosen from a pan-European list may contribute to these European political parties having a different nature from national delegations from member states, which have a greater say in all decisions taken in the European Parliament.