European Parliament opens in shadow of unsolved Brexit

With Brexit delayed until as late as October 31, the deep political divisions in Britain were on full display in the eastern French city as 73 British MEPs arrived at parliament.

Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage, a veteran of the EU chamber since 1999, led the charge as his MEPs turned their backs when asked to stand for the EU anthem Beethoven's Ode to Joy at the start of the session.

Farage also warned of a "turquoise takeover" in the UK if the ruling Conservatives failed to deliver a divorce.

With 29 elected representatives, his Brexit Party whose official colour is turquoise is the national party with the largest delegation, just ahead of the Northern League of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini with 28 seats.

Opposite Farage were the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, who also performed well in the EU elections. They arrived in Strasbourg with bright yellow t-shirts emblazoned with "Bollocks to Brexit" and "Stop Brexit".

In theory, the new parliament should have only 705 seats if Brexit were taken into account. When Brexit happens, 27 of the British seats are to be redistributed to other countries and another 46 set aside for future EU enlargements.

The opening session was also marked by a protest by Catalan separatists outside the parliament in support of three of their own who are blocked by Madrid from taking office.

Catalan demonstration
The crisis in Spain drew at least 10,000 demonstrators who waved the Catalan flag in front of the European Parliament.

Those refused seats include Carles Puigdemont, the former head of the Catalan regional government who lives in Belgium to escape a Spanish arrest warrant after leading an attempted secession in 2017.

The others are his running mate Toni Comin, and the pro-independence activist Oriol Junqueras, who is in pre-trial detention in Spain.

Their seats will remain empty in a situation that "depends on the Spanish authorities, not the European Parliament," a parliament spokeswoman told AFP.

The main task of this first session will be to elect a new parliament president or speaker one of the European top jobs.

The choice of the successor to Italy's Antonio Tajani had been due to take place on Tuesday, but was postponed until Wednesday to allow time for the 28 EU leaders meeting in Brussels to agree on a full slate of European posts.

Despite eurosceptic gains, the pro-European bloc will keep a comfortable majority, with more than two thirds of the votes after adding up those of the conservative EPP (182 MEPs), Social Democrats (154), Renew Europe centrists (108) and Greens (75).

As ever, the biggest establishment party force will be the CDU/CSU, the alliance between the formation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Bavarian sister party, which will also have 29 deputies between them.

This delegation forms the backbone of the European People's Party, the parliament's biggest political family, whose internal divisions have so far blocked progress on filling top EU posts.

The EPP and the Social Democrats group can no longer agree on major decisions alone and the centrists and Greens are determined to use this new opportunity to advance their political priorities.

But centrists allied to French President Emmanuel Macron also want to play a pivotal role, and deliver on the French leader's ambitions to shake up the EU.