The Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (the predecessor of the present day European Parliament) first met on 10 September 1952[23] and the first Christian Democratic Group was unofficially formed the next day, with Maan Sassen as president.

[28] To counter this, the EPP expanded its remit to cover the centre-right regardless of tradition and pursued a policy of integrating liberal-conservative parties.

[28] This policy led to Greek New Democracy and Spanish People's Party MEPs joining the EPP Group.

However, the consolidation was not unalloyed and a split emerged with the Eurosceptic MEPs who congregated in a subgroup within the Group, also called the European Democrats (ED).

[30][non-primary source needed] The two MEPs later joined a breakaway political party in the UK, The Independent Group.

They formed a coalition with Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and Renew Europe to elect Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission.

The day-to-day running of the EPP Group is performed by its secretariat in the European Parliament, led by its Secretary-General.

The debates and votes in the European Parliament are tracked by its website[84] and categorised by the groups that participate in them and the rule of procedure that they fall into.

[85] Documents produced in 2008 cover subjects such as dialogue with the Orthodox Church, study days, its strategy for 2008–09, Euro-Mediterranean relations, and the Lisbon Treaty.

The group as a whole is described as ambiguous on hypothetical EU taxes, against taxation, environmental issues, social issues (LGBT rights, abortion, euthanasia) and full Turkish accession to the European Union, and for a deeper Federal Europe, deregulation, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and controlling migration into the EU.