Towards a European Parliamentary Class?

The article tries to analyse the structure of the European parliamentary class and to understand if there is the enforcement of a core group of European politicians within the European Parliament. Starting from a brief review of the literature, the paper enlightens the relevance of the studies on the parliamentary class to gain also useful information on political institutions. After this, an attempt of typology for the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has been introduced and, in conclusion, the paper presents the empirical data based on this typology with reference to the 2009-2014 European Parliament. This typology could be useful to evaluate the strengthening of a European parliamentary class, which represents a good indicator about the enforcement of the EP’s institutionalization process. The gathered data highlights some important distinctions between the various member states but confirms the trend towards the empowerment of a core group of European politicians.