Brussels/Strasbourg - Britain's Conservative party is to leave the main centre-right group in the European Parliament to form a eurosceptic bloc of its own after elections in June, parliament officials in Strasbourg said Thursday.

The move would be a blow to the conservative European People's Party (EPP), of which the Tories are the second-largest member.

But British conservatives insisted that it would not hand more power to socialist parties, since they would still vote with their former partners on key matters.

"We want to form a new centre-right group in the European Parliament which is not federalist in any shape or form," Struan Stevenson, the British deputy chairman of the conservative European People's Party (EPP), told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"It has been agreed that this will be a friendly separation, not a divorce, and we will continue a close working relationship with the EPP," he said.

Britain's Conservatives have long been critical of the EPP, which they see as too pro-European. In 2005 the Tories' current leader, David Cameron, pledged to pull his party out of the EU grouping and set up a new alliance within the parliament.

"We do have specific differences on things like the Lisbon Treaty (reforming the EU's rules), the creation of a common defence and foreign policy ... a series of issues falling under the umbrella of federalism," Stevenson said.

The European Parliament is currently divided into seven alliances of politicians elected from individual member states. Under existing rules, members of the parliament
(MEPs) can create a new party if they gather at least 20 MEPs from at least 6 countries.

The EPP is the largest grouping in the parliament, with 287 members. Britain's Tories are the second-largest group within the party, with 27 members.

Over the last 18 months, the British conservatives have found potential allies in nine member states, more than enough to form a viable grouping, Stevenson said. He would not be drawn on who those potential partners are.

Socialist politicians in Britain accuse the Tories of planning an alliance with extremist groups, the BBC reported.

Stevenson insisted that the Tory move would not splinter the parliament's centre-right MEPs.

"On 90 per cent of the other issues, we do agree with the EPP," and would vote with them, he stressed.

Voters across Europe are set to go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament in June. The conservatives would leave the EPP after the elections, Stevenson said. (dpa)