22 January 1972
Signing of the Act of Accession of Denmark, Ireland and United Kingdom.

1972
Establishment of the "Political Committee" of the Christian-Democratic Parties of the European Community with the aim of improving the coordination of European policy and cooperation.

1 January 1973
Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom become members of the European Community (the Norwegian people having rejected the Treaty of Accession by referendum).
The European Parliament is composed of 198 Members, of which 52 are Christian-Democrats. A new political group is formed, the European Conservative Group, made up of British and Danish MEPs. The Fine Gael MEPs from Ireland join the Christian-Democrats.

1973
Change of leadership in the EUCD: Kai-Uwe von HASSEL (CDU-D) appointed President and Arnaldo FORLANI (DC-I) Secretary General.

10/11 December 1974
Summit meeting in Paris. Henceforth, Summits are to be renamed as meetings of the European Council. The Christian-Democrat Prime Minister of Belgium, Leo TINDEMANS, is invited to draw up a report on European Union by the end of 1975. His report was presented to the European Council in January 1976.

1975
Establishment of a "European Party" working group with the task of drawing up a draft statute for a European union of parties. Wilfried MARTENS, Chairman of the CVP (Belgium), and Hans-August LüCKER, Chairman of the Christian-Democratic Group in the European Parliament were appointed rapporteurs.

14 January 1975
The European Parliament adopts the Patijn Report on the convention introducing elections to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage.

28 February 1975
The Lomé Convention is signed with 46 developing countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

5 June 1975
Referendum in the United Kingdom gives two-thirds majority for remaining in the Community.

12 June 1975
Greece applies for membership.

10 July 1975
The European Parliament approves the Report on European Union, the Parliament's contribution to the TINDEMANS Report, drawn up by the Belgian Christian-Democrat Alfred BERTRAND. The most important points of the report were:

the future European Parliament should have comprehensive budgetary powers and powers of control and become the genuine legislative organ of the Community (or at least have equal rights);

it should be complemented by a European decision-making centre identifiable as a genuine European government, independent of national governments, and accountable to the European Parliament;

the collaboration of the Member States in the decision-making process of the Union should be assured by a Chamber of States;

the powers of the various institutions, both vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis the Member States, should be defined clearly and in detail.

The vote in plenary session showed that the Christian-Democrats and Conservatives were solidly behind the resolution; among the Socialists, the Labour Members abstained, and among the Liberals the Danes abstained. The spokesman for the EPD (Gaullist) Group expressed cautious agreement, but most of the Members of his Group did not take part in the vote. The Communists voted against.

22 July 1975
Signing of the Second Treaty amending certain budgetary provisions of the Treaties and introducing a conciliation procedure. The Treaty increases the European Parliament's budgetary powers and creates a Court of Auditors.

9 September 1975
The Belgian, Alfred BERTRAND, is elected Chairman of the Christian-Democratic Group.

7 January 1976
Belgian Prime Minister TINDEMANS presents his report on European Union.

26 January 1976
Setting up of the committee responsible for establishing the EUCDW (European Union of Christian Democrat Workers), later affiliated to the EUCD. The EUCDW's programme of activities focuses on the following areas: labour and employment policy, family policy, the safeguarding of competition through restrictions on, and supervision of, the operations of multinational companies, and improvements to the working environment.

16 February 1976
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) forwards to the Council of Ministers a draft EEC/COMECON Agreement. This was the first formal recognition of the EEC on the part of the COMECON states. Talks were broken off after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980.

21 February 1976
Adoption of the manifesto drawn up by the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD), Paris.

29 April 1976
The European People's Party is founded in Brussels. Composed of parties from seven Community countries. Its Statute allowed other parties of the centre to join as long as they were ready to subscribe to Christian-Democrat values. This was particularly important with reference to those Community countries which, for historical reasons, had no parties which were expressly labelled Christian-Democrat

The following were the founding parties: CDU and CSU/Germany, PSC and CVP/Belgium, CDS/France, Fine Gael/Ireland, DC/Italy, CSV/Luxembourg, KPV und CHU and ARP/Netherlands.

8 July 1976
Constituent meeting of the European People's Party in Luxembourg. The Political Committee unanimously approved the Statute of the European People's Party.

"The following statute, based upon our Christian-Democratic concept of man and society and our desire to encourage in Europe a community of free individuals and responsible citizens each taking a full part in the social economic and political structures of a pluralist society, a community which is just, peaceful and united in its dealings with all the peoples of the world, is hereby enacted" (From the Preamble of the EPP Statute).

The Christian-Democrat Prime Minister of Belgium, Leo TINDEMANS, is elected President.

12/13 July 1976
In Brussels the European Council approves the Convention on direct elections to the European Parliament and sets the number of Members to be directly elected at 410. The provisions governing the first European elections (for which the target date is set at 1978) are laid down in the European Elections Act of 1976.

March 1977
The Italian and Member of the CD Group Emilio COLOMBO, formerly Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Italy, is elected President of the European Parliament.

28 March 1977
Portugal applies for membership.

5 May 1977
The German Egon KLEPSCH is elected chairman of the CD Group. He remained chairman until 1982 and was reelected in 1984. He was President of the European Parliament from 1992 until 1994.

25 May 1977
The three Christian-Democrat parties of the Netherlands present a joint list for the first time for the parliamentary elections as the "Christen Democratisch Appèl".

28 July 1977
Spain applies for membership.

6 - 7 March 1978
First Congress of the European People's Party in Brussels: Adoption of Political Programme: "Striving together for a Europe of free citizens".

Extract from the programme: "We the European People's Party ... desire the unity of Europe. It were Christian-Democratic statesmen such as Robert SCHUMAN, Alcide de GASPERI and Konrad ADENAUER, who laid the foundations for what has been achieved so far. We are continuing their successful work. We are firmly resolved to bring this historic work in their spirit to fruition. Our goal is a federation of Europe, as proposed by Robert SCHUMAN on 9 May 1950."

14 March 1978
The Group changes its name to "Christian-Democratic Group (Group of the European People's Party)".

22 - 23 February 1979
II EPP Congress in Brussels: Adoption of Election Manifesto for the 1st direct elections to the European Parliament and appeal to all European citizens to take a constructive part in the European elections.

13 March 1979
European Monetary System (EMS) comes into effect.

28 May 1979
Signature in Athens of the Greek accession documents. On 1 January 1981, Greece becomes the tenth member of the Community.

7 - 10 June 1979
First European elections.

Overall turnout was 63.8 per cent (111 million people out of an electorate of 180 million). The constituent parties of the EPP Group received 32.8 million votes (29.6%) and won 107 seats. The Socialist and Social Democrat parties received 29.5 million votes (26.6%) and won 112 seats.

The EPP gained nearly 3.3 million votes (2.9%) more than the Socialists, even though there were no EPP candidates in Denmark and the United Kingdom.

9 July 1979
First meeting of the EPP Group in the European Parliament following direct general elections. Egon A. KLEPSCH is re-elected Group Chairman.

17 July 1979
The Group changes its name to "Group of the European People's Party (Christian-Democrat Group)".

17-20 July 1979
First sitting of the directly-elected European Parliament in Strasbourg. With the support of the EPP Group, the French politician Mrs Simone Veil, Member of the Liberal and Democratic Group, is elected President.

13 December 1979
The European Parliament rejects the 1980 Community budget by a majority of 288 votes to 64, with 1 abstention.

10 July 1980
Setting up of the EPP's Africa Foundation "to further exchanges of ideas between democratically-oriented social, political and cultural groupings in Africa and Europe and to draw up joint cooperation programmes in the spirit of the Lomé Convention" (Article 3 of the Foundation's Statute).

1 - 2 September 1980
III EPP Congress in Cologne: "The Christian-Democrats in the Eighties". Declaration: Safeguarding peace and freedom completion of Europe.

"We are called upon to give shape to the European ideal. It is up to our generation to overcome recession, give inspiration to the young, defend human rights and preserve living standards. We must work to arouse hope and confidence in these troubled times and to unleash creative forces which will operate positively in the interest of all". (From Leo TINDEMANS' address as Chairman).

7 October 1980
Leo TINDEMANS is re-elected Chairman of the EPP, and Jean SEITLINGER Secretary-General.

29 October 1980
Judgment in the European Court of Justice on the 'isoglucose' case. The Court of Justice acknowledges Parliament's right to initiate legal proceedings in defence of its powers and declares the regulation adopted by the Council without a prior opinion from Parliament null and void.