Nieuwe Europarlementsleden van start (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – A new generation of MEPs will be trying to find their way around the famously labyrinth-like European Parliament building in Strasbourg this week as the constitutive session of the assembly gets under way.

Almost half (49.8%) of the 736 deputies have been elected for the first time while women will represent just over a third of the assembly, which is also host to eight former prime ministers and boasts two octogenarians.

The main buzz in the corridors will be one of deal-making as deputies divide up committee membership, firm up political alliances and formalise the political groups in parliament.

There are 160 national groups represented within the parliament the vast majority of which are housed in the seven political groups ranging from the centre-right European People Party (265 MEPs) to the smallest, the newly-formed eurosceptic and right wing Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) with 30 members.

Just 28 MEPs are not non-attached, including the deputies from Britain's far-right BNP and the France's National Front.

While the EFD rose out of the ashes of the equally eurosceptic Independence/Democracy group in the last parliament, there is a whole new group this time round in the form of the anti-federalist European Conservative and Reformists.

British Conservatives form the backbone of this group and there has already been much speculation about how much influence it will have over the next five years, with many of its members previously having been allied to the European People's Party.

The group already looks set to scoop a major committee however. Parliament insiders suggest British Conservative Malcolm Harbour will chair the internal market committee. Other important committees include the environment committee, set to be chaired by German socialist Jo Leinen and the industry committee, which could land in the lap of German centre-right deputy Herbert Reul.

The parliament will also elect its new president. But the secret ballot, taking place on Tuesday, is unlikely to be nail-biting event as most groups have said they will vote in favour of Jerzy Buzek, a Polish centre-right MEP.

This parliament, the seventh legislature since direct elections began in 1979, is set to be of extra interest to political scientists who have already remarked that it is more fragmented that previously, making it more difficult to forge majorities.

This legislature also appears to have a more cohesive front of eurosceptics, who are gathered in two groups, representing 11.6 percent of deputies. In addition, after voters decided to punish or not vote for the left in large numbers in the June elections, it is also more right wing.

A coalition of the EPP, the Liberals and the new European Conservatives group would give the right an absolutely majority in parliament.

The liberals have ruled out working with what they call "anti-Europeans" however meaning that parliament is set to continue its traditional modus operandi of thrashing out deals between the two biggest groups, the EPP and the Socialists.

There are some major pieces of legislation coming its way in the coming months including new laws on financial regulation, to be proposed by the European Commission in the autumn, a telecoms bill which failed at the 11th hour in the last parliament and legislation on cross-border health care.

The parliament, while finding its feet over the next couple of months, will also be keenly waiting for the new Lisbon Treaty to come into force. If ratified across the Union, the treaty will greatly increase MEPs' powers of co-legislation.

The institution has already flexed its muscles by scuppering member states' plans to have a July vote on the next president of the European Commission, postponing it to autumn instead.