Under the new rules governing European political parties, the EPP (as all other European parties) was given the exclusive mandate to campaign horizontally across Europe and to play a very active role in the campaigns of member-parties in the Member States. To consolidate our campaign, we cooperated closely with our heads of state and government and party leaders who were prominent at the national level; with the campaign managers of our member-parties; and with our EPP Group in the European Parliament.

As a central part of our 2009 campaign, the EPP formally endorsed José Manuel BARROSO for a second term as President of the European Commission at the Congress of Warsaw where we launched our election manifesto ‘Strong for the People.’

The EPP won resounding victories in Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Romania and Poland. With 265 out of 736 seats the EPP is by far the largest political Group in the European Parliament. The message that European citizens sent to their politicians was crystal clear: to put ambition and political will back at the heart of European action, to meet the daily concerns of the citizens and to ensure Europe’s leading role in the world. The EPP and our member-parties demonstrated that this is exactly what we stand for, certainly in times of economic crisis.