Next year's June Euro-elections take place for the first time in the UK under proportional representation, and the process of selecting the candidates of the political parties is well under way.
While the Liberals completed the procedure before the summer, the Tories have drawn up lists in numbered order for the nine English regions and Wales. The lists have been drawn up on the basis of ballots of party members attending hustings and meetings in different towns and cities throughout the country. The candidates for Scotland will be chosen by local party members, following meetings in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. The party can be expected to increase its representation under the system, even with a low percentage of the vote.
The Labour Party is engaged in an extensive process, with a panel made up of representatives of the national executive and the regions, charged with the task of interviewing and ranking prospective candidates. Although some Labour MEPs will be retiring, many will be seeking re-selection along with new hopefuls. It is almost certain that some will be disappointed, for the new system will mean a loss of seats for the party, even if it secures 44 per cent of the vote as it did in 1994. The completed lists will go to the party conference for approval next month.
Europe also figured at the Green Party's autumn conference, with the party, mindful of 1989 when it secured 15 per cent of the vote, hoping to win representation for the first time. The party is standing on a platform of replacing policies of free trade and growth with the ecological alternative of local self-reliance and conservation of resources. It supports co-operation between regions and peoples of Europe, but believes that the present set-up has been distorted by vested political and economic interests.
The party favours revamping the EU as a European Confederation of the regions, based on sustainability. It is opposed to the CAP, the common fisheries policy and the single European market. It does not however, support withdrawal from the EU, but campaigns for reforms from within.