| European Democrats | |
|---|---|
| European Parliament group | |
| Name | European Democrats |
| English abbr. | ED[1][2][3] |
| French abbr. | DE[4] |
| Formal name | European Democratic Group[3][5] |
| Ideology | Conservatism[6] Economic liberalism[6] Euroscepticism[6] |
| Political position | Centre-right[7] toright-wing[8] |
| From | 17 July 1979[4] |
| To | 1 May 1992[4] |
| Preceded by | European Conservative Group |
| Succeeded by | European People's Party–European Democrats |
| Chaired by | James Scott-Hopkins,[5] Henry Plumb,[9] Christopher Prout[10] |
| MEP(s) | 63 (17 July 1979) 50 (23 July 1984) 34 (25 July 1989) |
TheEuropean Democratic Group, more commonly known asEuropean Democrats, was aconservativepolitical group that operated in theEuropean Parliament between 1979 and 1992. At its height in July 1979, it had 63MEPs.
Ideologically, ED was moreEurosceptic andright-wing than its centre-right rivalEuropean People's Party (EPP). Its members included parties such as the UKConservative Party ofMargaret Thatcher, DanishConservative People's Party, and SpanishPeople's Alliance. In 1992, ED became a subgroup of EPP, now theEuropean People's Party–European Democrats. ED split from EPP in 2009 to re-create the group as theAlliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.
TheEuropean Democratic Group[3][5] (ED) was formed on 17 July 1979[4] by BritishConservative Party, DanishConservative People's Party and other MEPs after their success in the1979 elections. It supplanted the earlierEuropean Conservative Group.
In the late seventies and early eighties, the ED was the third-largestpolitical group in the European Parliament.
However, the group saw its membership fall sharply in the late 1980s, as manycentre-right members moved to the rivalEuropean People's Party (EPP), dominated by theChristian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), ItalianChristian Democrats and the ideology ofChristian democracy in general. The ED had been somewhat further from thepolitical centre and lesspro-European than the EPP. Largely isolated, even hardlineeurosceptics likeMargaret Thatcher conceded that the British Conservatives could not be effectively heard from such a peripheral group.
On 1 May 1992,[4] the ED (now largely composed of UKConservative Party members) dissolved, and its remaining members were accorded "associated party" status in theEuropean People's Party Group (EPP Group); that is, being part of the parliamentary group without retaining actual membership in theEuropean People's Party (EPP) itself. This was considered essential for the Conservatives, as the EPP was generally seen as quite favourable to European integration, a stance at odds with their core ideology. The Conservatives' relationship to the EPP would become a sore point in the following years, particularly for the eurosceptic general membership in Britain. Then-leader of the British Conservative PartyWilliam Hague hoped to put the issue to rest by negotiating a new arrangement in 1999 by which the EPP's parliamentary group would rebrand itself as theEuropean People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), with the "European Democrat" nomenclature returning after a seven-year hiatus. This was intended to nominally underscore the Conservatives' status apart from the rest of EPP, and it was hoped that with the comingenlargement of the European Union numerous newly involvedright-wing parties, averse to the EPP proper for its perceivedEuropean federalism, would be willing to instead enter the ED subgroup, growing the overall alignment.
The arrangement proved to do little to appease opposition. Hague's successor,Iain Duncan Smith, made a concerted drive at one point to resurrect the European Democratic Group, but backed off when it became clear that Conservative MEPs would not move voluntarily. The hope that multiple Central and European parties would join ED also proved to be dubious, as only the CzechCivic Democratic Party took up the offer, with the remainder joining EPP proper or other groups such asUnion for Europe of the Nations (UEN) orIndependence and Democracy (IND/DEM). Meanwhile, the ED remained a moreeurosceptic subgroup within the broader EPP-ED bloc that contributed slightly more than 10% of its total MEPs. It resisted the trend of incorporating as aEuropean political party.
During the2005 Conservative leadership contest, eventual winnerDavid Cameron pledged to withdraw the Conservatives from the EPP-ED group, while opponentDavid Davis argued in a letter to the editor ofThe Daily Telegraph that the current ED arrangement allowed the Conservatives to maintain suitable distance from EPP while still having influence in the largest parliamentary grouping. Conservative/EPP-ED MEPMartin Callanan responded in that paper the following day:
SIR - David Davis (Letter, November 10) is sadly misinformed about our Conservative MEPs' relationship with the European People's Party (EPP) in the European Parliament. He claims that "Conservatives are members of the European Democrat group, which forms an alliance with the EPP". In reality, though, the ED does not exist. It has no staff or money and is, in effect, a discussion group within the EPP. […] Far from being a symbolic step, as Mr Davis suggests, leaving the EPP is the one hard, bankable commitment to have come out of this leadership campaign.[11]
The CzechCivic Democratic Party (ODS), theLaw and Justice (PiS) of Poland and theRally For France party were among the first to discuss forming a breakaway group under theMovement for European Reform.Sir Reg Empey, Leader of theUlster Unionist Party (UUP) has committed his party thereunto[12] Its position would be that theEuropean Union should exist, but as a looser supranational organisation than at present, making the group less eurosceptic than the UEN and IND/DEM groups. Some members from the above parties founded a new organisation, theAlliance for an Open Europe, in the midst of this debate, with broadly similar objectives.
Cameron initially intended to form the new group in 2006, though this aspiration had to be cancelled due to their main prospective partners, the ODS and PiS, being unable or unwilling to break away from their then-groupings; the new grouping was put on hiatus until the2009 European elections. By then, new factors—including the collapse of the UEN group—made conditions for forming a new political grouping much more favourable. On 22 June 2009, the founder members of theEuropean Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR Group), all signatories of the Prague Declaration announced that they were to leave the EPP-ED, and in virtue of that fact, the European Democrats movement. This announcement ended the 30-year existence of the European Democrats in the European Parliament.
The following political parties were associated with the European Democrats at some point:
| Country | Name | Ideology | Membership | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 United Kingdom | Conservative Party | Conservatives | Conservatism Euroscepticism | 17 July 1979–22 June 2009 | |
| Ulster Unionist Party | UUP | Conservatism British unionism | 20 July 1999–22 June 2009 | ||
 Denmark | Conservative People's Party | DKF | Liberal conservatism Social conservatism | 17 July 1979–22 June 2009 | |
 Spain | People's Alliance | AP | Liberal conservatism National conservatism | 10 June 1987–25 July 1989 | |
 Italy | Pensioners' Party | PP | Conservatism Soft Euroscepticism | 20 July 1999–22 June 2009 | |
 Czech Republic | Civic Democratic Party | ODS | National conservatism Soft Euroscepticism[13] | 14 July 2004–22 June 2009 | |
 Portugal | CDS – People's Party | CDS–PP | Christian democracy National conservatism | 14 July 2004–22 June 2009 | |
TheEuropean Democrat Group in theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was founded as theGroup of Independent Representatives in 1970 by British and Scandinavian members of PACE, having about 35–40 members from the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Sweden and Switzerland. It adopted the European Democrats Group name in September 1980, later becoming theEuropean Conservatives Group in 2014.
