Parties in the European Council between January and April 2004

Prior to 1 May 2004 the European Union had fifteen members. On that date ten new member states were admitted. This article describes the party affiliations of the leaders of each member-state represented in the European Council from the beginning of 2004 until the 1 May. The list below gives the political party that each head of government, or head of state, belonged to at the national level, as well as the European political alliance to which that national party belonged. The states are listed from most to least populous. More populous states have greater influence in the council, in accordance with the system of Qualified Majority Voting.

During the period in question only two changes of government occurred: in Greece and Spain, and taken together these left the overall balance of party affilitions in the Council unchanged.

Summary

Party	January 1 2004		April 30 2004
	#	QMV	#	QMV
European People's Party	7	44	7	41
Party of European Socialists	4	29	4	32
European Liberal, Democrat, and Reform Group	3	11	3	11
Alliance for Europe of the Nations	1	3	1	3

List of leaders (January 1, 2004)

Member-state	Votes	Leader	National party	European party
Germany	10	Gerhard Schröder	SPD	PES
France	10	Jacques Chirac	UMP	EPP
United Kingdom	10	Tony Blair	Labour	PES
Italy	10	Silvio Berlusconi	Forza Italia	EPP
Spain	8	José María Aznar López	PP	EPP
Netherlands	5	Jan Peter Balkenende	CDA	EPP
Greece	5	Costas Simitis	PASOK	PES
Belgium	5	Guy Verhofstadt	VLD	ELDR
Portugal	5	José Manuel Durão Barroso	PSD	EPP
Sweden	4	Göran Persson	SAP	PES
Austria	4	Wolfgang Schüssel	ÖVP	EPP
Denmark	3	Anders Fogh Rasmussen	Venstre	ELDR
Finland	3	Matti Vanhanen	Centre Party	ELDR
Ireland, Republic of	3	Bertie Ahern	Fianna Fáil	AEN
Luxembourg	2	Jean-Claude Juncker	CSV	EPP

Changes

Date	Member-state	Leader	National party	European group
10 March	Greece	Kostas Karamanlis	New Democracy	EPP
27 April	Spain	José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero	PSOE	PES

See also

• Presidency of the Council of the European Union

External links

• Council of the European Union (official website)