EUROPEAN PARTY SYSTEM AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION IN EUROPE

The paper briefly analyses the birth, evolution and current status of European political parties, strictly depending on national parties, to which European elections have been effectively entrusted so far. Then, the study underlines the role that European parties actually should play to strengthen the process of political integration in Europe. From this perspective, the essay aims at identifying the buttons to push to consolidate a genuine European system of mature political parties that can perform the long-standing task assigned them by the Treaties, i.e. to contribute to create among EU citizens a truly European political awareness, as laid down in Art. 10 TEU.