Emerging "European" Consciousness?

Members of the European Parliament have begun to vote more along party than national lines, with Greens leading the way, according to this article. Could this, at long last, indicate the emergence of a transnational polity? It would be extremely interesting indeed if environmentalism--the cross-border issue par excellence--were to lead the way to a new political order. If so, I will have been proven wrong: years ago, when green politics first emerged, I predicted that what I saw as "single-issue organization" would be subsumed by more traditional interests of class and economic order. But so many things are now linked to "green politics" that one can hardly dismiss these parties as "single-issue." Indeed, the great issues of the day, the questions than touch on our very vision of society and the fundamental values around which political conflict is to be organized, are increasingly linked to the questions that have always animated the Greens. Tocqueville distinguished between "great parties," which concern themselves with what George H. W. Bush dismissed as "the vision thing," and "petty parties," which squabble about division of the spoils. If the way back to "great politics" passes through Europe and the environment, I would be almost pleased to have been proven wrong.