ABSTRACT
Elections to the European Parliament are held every five years in the member states. These involve their respective national political parties in the context of transnational political groups and certain broad parameters of timing and rules. In 2012, the European Parliament passed a resolution in favour of appropriate and proportionate minimum electoral thresholds. The Christian democratic and socialist party groups have always been the two largest, with the socialists being the largest after the first four European Parliament elections and then the Christian democrats being the largest since 1999. The Greens would form a unique group in 1989, and the regionalists then became part of the heterogeneous European Radical Alliance dominated by the French Radicals. The party political groups in the European Commission reflect which parties are in power in the individual member states, as they are the ones who nominate said individuals.
