ALDE counts its losses

Not a good week for Graham Watson, leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament. The Romanian liberals lost two seats in the European Parliament elections on Sunday, while the centre-right EPP-ED group doubled its Romanian seats to 18.
Then Sajjad Karim, a UK Liberal Democrat MEP, announced that he had defected to the Conservatives. Karim's chief claim to fame might be that for an election leaflet he was photographed posting plastic bottles into a glass bottle-bank, but it still reduces Watson's numbers by another one.
The French contingent is looking a little souple as well. Jean-Marie Cavada, the French MEP who is chairman of the civil liberties committee, seems to be succumbing to the advances of Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France. Cavada is on a list of candidates for Paris's 12th arrondissement supported by Sarkozy's UMP. Cavada heads the list, with Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, at number two. The municipal elections are in March 2008.