Sinn Féin has requested a meeting with the secretary general of the Socialist group in the European Parliament to discuss the possibility of the party's two newly-elected MEPs, Ms Mary Lou McDonald and Ms Bairbre De Brún, joining the group.
Sinn Féin's chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin and the party's international director, Ms Joan O'Connor, were in Brussels yesterday, and a party spokesman said the Socialists were one of a number of groups Sinn Féin was consulting. "The plan was to speak to a number of groups," the spokesman said.
Leaders of the national delegations in the Socialist group discussed the request in Brussels this week, but the Labour MEP, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, told The Irish Times that he would oppose any request by Sinn Féin to join the Socialists.
"I don't believe they are a party of the left. They belong in the Union of a Europe of Nations (UEN) with Fianna Fáil. They are a populist, new Fianna Fáil," he said.
A request by Sinn Féin to join the Socialist group would also face opposition from British Labour MEPs and from Spanish Socialists, who are concerned about Sinn Féin's support for the Basque separatist group, Eta.
Among the European Parliament groups Sinn Féin is believed to be consulting is the European United Left (EUL) a far-left alliance. Joining the far-left group could prove embarrassing to Sinn Féin in the United States, given that some of the UEL's members are current or former communists.
The group's MEPs include the last communist prime minister of East Germany, Mr Hans Modrow, who boasts on his European Parliament website that East Germany gave him the Karl Marx award in 1978 and made him a Hero of Labour 10 years later.