ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the extent to which the campaign for the first direct elections to the European Parliament in June 1979 gave a further stimulus to the development of transnational party co-operation. The Italian Socialist Party was one of the most vociferous and uninhibited of all Confederation members in its emphasis on its Socialist connections in the European Community (EC), with its main slogan for the contemporaneous national and European campaigns. The seven Christian Democratic parties tended not so much to refer to European-wide Christian Democracy as such, as to concentrate on the specific presentation of the European People's Party (EPP) as an organisational unit, thus reflecting their more pragmatic approach to party co-operation. Bilateral and multilateral contacts, which had been a significant background factor in transnational activity, achieved a special salience in the shape of electoral co-operation during the European campaign.
