European Parliament constituency European Parliament constituency Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are elected by the population of the member states of the European Union (EU), divided into constituencies. Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom are respectively divided into 3, 8, 3, 5, 13 and 12 constituencies, while the other member states have a single national constituency. In Germany, political parties are entitled to present lists of candidates either at Länder or national level. The Kingdom of Denmark was also historically subdivided in two constituencies, with a separate one for Greenland which was dissolved in 1985 after the autonomous country
Political groups of the European Parliament such as the above has been increasing, with Simon Hix of the London School of Economics noting in 2007 that The political groups of the European Parliament have been around in one form or another since September 1952 and the first meeting of the Parliament's predecessor, the Common Assembly. The groups are coalitions of MEPs and the European political party and national parties that those MEPs belong to. The groups have coalesced into representations of the dominant schools of European political thought and are the primary actors in the Parliament. Some of the groups (such as the PES and S&D