Avrupa Parlamentosu’nda siyasal grupların geçmişi, Avrupa Topluluklarının kurulduğu 1950’li yıllara kadar gitmektedir. 1979 yılında Avrupa Parlamentosu üyelikleri için doğrudan seçimler yapılmaya başlanmıştır. Bu tarihten itibaren yapılan yedi seçimde Hristiyan Demokratlar ve Sosyalistler iki büyük parti grubunu oluşturmuşlardır. Avrupa düzeyinde siyasal partiler ilk kez Maastricht Antlaşması’nın 138.A maddesinde düzenlemeye alınmıştır. Bununla birlikte Avrupa partileri, gerek seçmenlerle doğrudan bağlarının zayıf olmasıgerekse de AB’ye bakışın ülkeden ülkeye değişmesi nedeniyle meşruiyet sorunuyla karşıkarşıya bulunmaktadırlar. 2009’da yapılan Avrupa Parlamentosu seçimlerinde katılım oranı%42,9 oranında olmuştur. Bu çalışma Avrupa Parlamentosu’nda temsil edilen partileri ve bu partilerin seçim performanslarınıele almakta ve Avrupa Parlamentosu siyasal gruplarının geleceğine yönelik bir tartışma yürütmektedir.

The history of the political groups in the European Parliament dates back to 1950’s when European Communities founded. In 1979, the direct elections began to be held for the memberships of the European Parliament. In the seven elections held from this date on, Christian Democrats and Socialists constituted two large party groups. In the European level, political parties were first arranged by Maastricht Treaty article 138.A Furthermore, European parties confront with the legitimacy issue because of not only the weak direct voter alignments but also the differentiation of the perception of EU from one country to another. This study deals with the parties represented in the European Parliament and the election performances of these parties. The development process of EU shows parallelism with the development processes of European parties. Considering the historical process, basic debate topics like sharing the sovereignty, representation, transnational relations, and determining and pursuing common policies which have appeared during the development period of European Union up to now, have been felt similarly in the development processes of the European parties. Besides all of the internal factors, the development of these transnational parties, at the same time, are related to the European Union’s efficiency. The place of the European Union within world politics, the level of applicability of common policies within the Union, and even the future of the thought of the union stand out as the improvements that affect these European political groups directly. European Parliament elections were held for seven terms up to now, beginning from 1979, 1979/1981, 1984/1986, 1989, 1994/1995, 1999, 2004/2007, 2009 elections. After the participation of Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1987, Sweden in 1995, Australia and Finland in 1996, Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 to European Union, they could send parliamentarian to the European Parliament. With the arrangements in 2003, political groups in European Parliament obtained the opportunity to organizing campaigns directly. Last elections of European Parliament were held in 2009. The rates of the participation to European Parliament elections show a tendency to decrease gradually. It regressed from the participation rate of 63%, the highest participation rate, in 1979 to 42.9 % in 2009. On the other hand, the number of European parliamentarians elected increased constantly till 2007, however, in 2009 the number was fixed to 736. 2009 elections of European Parliament shared out the total number of parliamentarians, 736, among the parties. EPP, the party coming the first in the European Parliament elections since 1999, once more became the first in 2009 elections with its vote rates of 36% and acquired 265 parliamentarians. Socialists have become the second party, once more, with the rate of 25% and gained 184 parliamentarians but this time under the umbrella of S&D. ALDE obtained 84 parliamentarians with the vote rate of 11.4%; Greens-EFA obtained 55 parliamentarians with the vote rate of 7.5½; GUE-NGL gained 35 parliamentarians with the rate of 4.8%. Independents achieved 26 parliamentarians with the vote rate of 3.5%. Current distribution of parliamentarians in European Parliament by countries are as such: Germany 99; United Kingdom, Italy and France 72; Spain and Poland 50; Romania 33; Netherlands 25; Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary and Portugal 22; Sweden 18; Bulgaria and Australia 17; Denmark, Finland and Slovakia 13; Lithuania and Ireland 12, Latvia 8; Slovenia 7; Estonia, Luxemburg and Greek Cypriot State 6; Malta 5. The competitive parties are classified from 1979 to 2009. According to this classification in European Parliament, the main political groups are Christian Democrats, conservatives, social democrats, liberals and centrists, greens and regionalists, left tendencies, nationalist conservatives, supporters of euroscepticism and nationalists. Since 1979, when a general evaluation is to be made regarding directly to European Parliament elections, parliament generally keeps a structure including small party groups besides two large party groups. The political groups formed in 2009 elections are: European People’s Party - EPP Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, S&D Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ALDE /ADLE