ABSTRACT
The subject of this chapter is the final, and so far the most import ant, dimension in the triangular construction of transnational party co-operation - the individual national parties of the nine Com munity member states; and how they conditioned the Euro-parliamentary and transnational party-organisational dimensions during the process of politicisation in the period 1974-9. The distinctive feature of this period was the growth of the interlinkage between these three dimensions, which previously had been extremely mini mal and, in any case, had not been properly triangular in the absence of a viable transnational organisational element related specifically to the EC. This change resulted at the national level from a more serious attention to transnational links, a greater readiness to intensify and to institutionalise them and a recognition of the need to develop them with a more political content in the light of direct elections and the wider context of politicisation in the EC, with its stronger recognition that many problems could only be solved Community-wide.
