Several political groups in the European Parliament criticised, on Thursday 21 March, at the Conference of Presidents, the projections made by the Parliament's media team on the seats of the next Parliament after the May elections (see EUROPE 12205/17).
It was therefore decided that the Parliament Bureau will discuss the future of these projections at its meeting on Monday 25 March. "Pending a final decision by the Bureau, the publication of the projections will be temporarily suspended", explained Parliament services. The Bureau is Parliament's governing body. It is composed of the President, the 14 Vice-Presidents and the five Quaestors elected by the Assembly for a renewable period of two and a half years.
The EPP Group would have been rather in favour of regularly publishing a photograph of the seats of the next Parliament. "Some political groups expressed concerns about the projections, including the fact that they were public", says one source. They considered that it was not Parliament's role to publish such surveys.
However, Parliament does not make its own projections: it compiles voting intentions based on polls in EU countries.
It is up to the Bureau to decide. President Antonio Tajani decided, after the Conference of Presidents, that the subject would be included on the agenda of the next Parliament Bureau meeting on Monday.
For the first time in its history, the institution had released, in mid-February and early March, initial projections of voting intentions for the upcoming May elections.
A third projection was scheduled for Monday 18 March, but was not published. Parliament services are therefore, for the time being, interrupting the (bi-monthly) publication of projections. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)