A Quick Guide To the European Parliament's Parties

European People's Party

(EPP): This center-right party is home to the mainstream European conservative parties, like Germany and Italy's Christian Democrats, Spain's People's Party and Great Britain's Conservatives.

European Party of Socialists

(EPS): The center-left Brussels sister party to Germany's Social Democrats, Britain's Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and more.

Group of Liberal Democrat and Reform Party

(ELDR): This centrist political party is home to Germany's Free Democrats, Britain's Liberal Democrats and other business-friendly parties from across Europe.

The Greens/European Free Alliance

(EFA): The main European party representing the environmentally oriented and largely pacifist Greens. It is the Brussels and Strasbourg representative for the Green Parties in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France,Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

European United Left/Nordic Green Left

(GUE, NGL): This far-left leaning party represents Spain and Portugal's Communists, Spain's United Left, Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to East Germany's communists, and a number of other leftist groups.

Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities

(EDD): One of the more outspokenly euroskeptic parties, EDD includes the U.K.'s Independence Party, Denmark's June Movement, France's CPNT and Combats Souverainistes as well as the Dutch Christian Union Party, with its religious roots.

Union for Europe of the Nations

(UEN): One of the more outspokenly euroskeptic and conservative EU parties, the right-wing UEN includes Italy's post-fascist National Alliance, but also the moderate Irish Fianna Fail party.