Lyons, 26/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The 5th EPP-ED group European Ideas Network Summer University, chaired by British Conservative MEP James Elles, ended in Lyons on 23 September. Closing proceedings, UMP MEP, and EPP-ED deputy leader Françoise Grossetête said the “great innovation of this ideas network” was to contribute to the “modernisation of political life in Europe”. “The conclusions that we draw from our exchanges will feed into the political programme of the UMP's European family - the European Peoples Party - ahead of the 2009 European elections,” she said. Picking up the terms used by Nicolas Sarkozy in Brussels on 8 September (see EUROPE 9261), she said that, during the European elections, “every country sets out its plans without giving any thought to political partners in other Member States”; these elections could turn out to be simply a “democratic letting off of steam” where Europe does not count for much. She concluded, “No, we don't want that situation any longer. We must build this real European platform, this European political programme together, so that every party member of the EPP family whether in Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, France or elsewhere argues the same case”. (For the work of the European Ideas Network, see also EUROPE 9271 and 9272.)