EPTGreens – EFA counts 58 MEPs as the fourth largest group in the parliament. Actually the group is a coalition of 3 different european level parties: European Green Party counting 46 members, European Free Alliance counting 7 members and European Pirate Party counting 2. The last 4 members are unalligned or independent of european level parties. European Green Party is spearheaded by Europe Ecology in France and Die Grüne in Germany. As their name suggests they are mostly interested in environmental subjects.
European Free Alliance is the most interesting part. They are an alliance of progressive-minded separatists, seeking independence from their current nation. They are thus interested in issues concerning their chance of separating.
The last party is the pirate party. The pirate party has been an international movement but is a relatively new phenomenon in Europe and only Sweden has current MEPs. However, an EUPP is scheduled to be officially formed march 2014 and several national pirate parties are preparing for participation in the upcoming election. They are primarily concerned with digital rights, protecting civil rights, increasing transparency and weakening intellectual property rights.
Since all parties are relatively specific in their area of interest, they are able to work in a coalition group.
Just as s&d the greens - EFA are very interested in climate and environment. They want to increase the goal of reduced fossil fuel consumption for energy further and on the common agricultural policy they want a cap on how much a single entity can get in subsidies to make it more focused at smaller entities and tie it to more specific environmental clauses.
On privacy, corruption and human rights issues they are mostly concerned about the civil rights of people and particularly they emphasize the right to privacy. They are for protection of whistleblowers as well as having a heavy emphasis on increasing direct participation of EU citizens in the decission making proces.
Historically the EU-sceptics in the parliament are left-leaning and many of the parties in the Greens – EFA group are not particularly fond of EU. Especially European Free Alliance are strongly for less centralized legislation.
Stats:
Leaders: Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Europe Ecologie, France), Rebecca Harms (Die Grünen, Germany)
MEPs: 58
Average participation (voting): 87.2 %
Vote cohesion (since last election): 94,7 %
Most cohesion on (committee topic) : Development (98,2 %)
Worst cohesion on (committee topic): Internal Regulations of the EP (74,1 %)
Least towing of party line: Belgium Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie
Sources
http://www.greens-efa.eu/about-us/48-who-we-are.html
http://www.pp-international.net/node/531
http://www.votewatch.eu/#tabs-1
