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Justice law changes have quite a history in Romania and European officials have warned Romanian officials about the side effects:

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and First Vice President Frans Timmermans on Wednesday asked the Romanian parliament to rethink changes to laws governing the judiciary, which have raised concerns about the country’s fight against corruption.

These changes seemed to have echoes within the European Parliament:

Talk of possible exclusion mounted after a former Romanian Social Democrat MEP, Catalin Ivan, who has criticized the Romanian government over the past year, and been excluded from the party, wrote on Facebook on March 2 that the Romanian Social Democrat Party had become isolated from the European Socialists, and that there was no communication between Bucharest and Brussels.

Note: Social Democrat Party is the main party in power who promotes these changes

However, the same article argues that the European Socialists deny rift from SDP:

The European Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament will not exclude Romania’s Social Democratic Party – despite several members of the group criticizing Romania's ruling party and its allegedly illiberal justice policies.

I am wondering if EU Parliament has suffered such an exclusion.

Question: Is there a precedent of an European party/alliance from European Parliament excluding a member party in the last 20 years?

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  • It is not clear for me the connection between Party of European Socialists and The European Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats mentioned in the second article.
    – Alexei
    Jul 9, 2018 at 6:48
  • @owjburnham - origimbo provided some information related to this comment in the answer below.
    – Alexei
    Jul 9, 2018 at 8:00
  • Your question could be a lot more clear regarding the background. For people not familiar with European politics, it's rather vague what you're talking about. Jul 9, 2018 at 14:30

1 Answer 1

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The short answer seems to be that, given the broad spectrum of political views across the EU, and the requirement for officially recognised groups to represent multiple states (currently 25 MEPS from at least 7 states) this kind of instability doesn't seem to be particularly uncommon in the political groups of the European Union. For example, in March 2016 the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) was invited to voluntarily withdraw from the European Conservatives and Reformists group, under threat of formal expulsion.

Regarding the distinction between the Party of European Socialists and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the former is a confederation of socialist political parties from across the EU, Norway and observers from non-EU European states, while the latter is a political group in the European Parliament, which is formed of a rump of MEPs representing member parties of the former body, but also includes members from other leftist EU parties

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  • So, AfD being asked to withdraw is such a precedent.
    – Alexei
    Jul 9, 2018 at 7:58
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    What do you mean by "rump"? I think it means that many PES MEPs are not members of the PASD? Is that the case, or do you mean something else?
    – Qsigma
    Jul 9, 2018 at 11:46
  • @Qsigma The other way around. Most of the MEPs in the PASD group are members of national parties in the PES europarty, but there are a few MEPs in PASD whose parent party isn't in PES.
    – origimbo
    Jul 9, 2018 at 16:48
  • I thought so. Pls edit your answer to say something like "formed mostly of PES MEPs and also members from ... "
    – Qsigma
    Jul 10, 2018 at 8:54

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