Chamber of Deputies

According to the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber, each Deputy shall belong to a Parliamentary Group. Within two days of the first sitting, the Deputies must declare to the Secretary General of the Chamber the Group to which they belong. The Mixed Group encompasses all Deputies who do not belong to any other Group. Political groupings can be formed within the Mixed Group, under the conditions laid down in the Rules of Procedure (Rule 14, paragraph 5).

A minimum number of 20 Deputies is required to form a Group. As a result of the amendments to the Rules of Procedure adopted on 30 November 2022, starting from the 20^th Parliament, a minimum number of 14 Deputies will be required to form a group. Groups with a smaller number of Deputies can be formed subject to specific authorisation from the Bureau.

Inasmuch as Parliamentary Groups are entities necessary for the functioning of the Chamber, as provided for in the Constitution and the Rules of Proce­dure, they shall receive funds from the budget of the Chamber to carry out their activities (Rule 14, paragraph 01). Within thirty days of their establishment, Groups shall approve a statute, to be transmitted to the President of the Chamber within the following five days (Rule 15, paragraph 2-bis). The statute shall be published on the website of the Chamber (art. 15, comma 2-ter).

Groups usually correspond to the political parties or movements existing in the country and represented at the Chamber of Deputies. Deputies sit in the hemicycle of the Plenary Hall on the left, in the middle and on the right of the President, depending on their political orientation. The custom of using terms such as "left", "centre" and "right" to describe a political party derives from the location of Deputies in their debating chambers and originates at the time of the French Revolution.