The majoity of major political parties in Europe have aligned themselves into the pan-European political organisations listed below.
- Seven of these organisations have been legally recognized by the European Union as polical parties at the European level:
- The Nordic Green Left Alliance is a transnational federation of parties, not a pan-European political party per se, but it articulates a broadly uniform ideology and its membership is exclusive to it. As such, it is treated akin to one here.
- The European Democrats are an informal body who only express themselves as a subgroup in the European Parliament. They likewise enjoy an relative ideological uniformity and membership exclusive from the other organization. They are also treated like the other pan-European political organizations in the below chart.
The following chart summarizes the placement of parties from the 29 EU and EFTA states in these organizations. (The remainder of European states, generally speaking, lack a consolidated party system and are thus excluded at present.) Only parties represented in national parliaments or the European Parliament are included, while independents have been omitted. Please note that great ideological diversity can be found in most pan-European organizations, and individual country rows may not correspond with the heuristic left-right spectrum commonly used within its own political discourse.
Notes:
- Standalone parties with representation in the European Parliament are coloured by the parliamentary group in which they sit. These are:
- The "Standalone parties of the political centre" column includes some single-interest parties that claim to draw support from all across the spectrum.
- † indicates the party has observer status within transnational organization
- National parties are sorted by the alignment adopted by the party's leadership; in some cases MEPs have chosen to sit in different groups within the EP.