Editing European Democrats (section)

==European Democrats in the European Parliament==

===1979–1992===
The [[European Democratic Group]]<ref name="t1s3"/><ref name="t1s49"/> (ED) was formed on 17 July 1979<ref name="t1s7"/> by British [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]], Danish [[Conservative People's Party (Denmark)|Conservative People's Party]] and other MEPs after their success in the [[1979 European Parliament election|1979 elections]]. It supplanted the earlier [[European Conservative Group]].

In the late seventies and early eighties, the ED was the third-largest [[Political groups of the European Parliament|political group in the European Parliament]].

However, the group saw its membership fall sharply in the late 1980s, as many [[centre-right politics|centre-right]] members moved to the rival [[European People's Party]] (EPP), dominated by the [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany]] (CDU), Italian [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democrats]] and the ideology of [[Christian democracy]] in general. The ED had been somewhat further from the [[Centrism|political centre]] and less [[Pro-Europeanism|pro-European]] than the EPP. Largely isolated, even hardline [[Euroscepticism|eurosceptic]]s like [[Margaret Thatcher]] conceded that the British Conservatives could not be effectively heard from such a peripheral group.

===1992–1999===
On 1 May 1992,<ref name="t1s7"/> the ED (now largely composed of UK [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] members) dissolved, and its remaining members were accorded "associated party" status in the [[European People's Party Group]] (EPP Group); that is, being part of the parliamentary group without retaining actual membership in the [[European 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 Party [[William 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 the [[European People's Party Group|European 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 coming [[enlargement of the European Union]] numerous newly involved [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]] parties, averse to the EPP proper for its perceived [[Federal Europe|European federalism]], would be willing to instead enter the ED subgroup, growing the overall alignment.

===1999–2009===
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 Czech [[Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic)|Civic Democratic Party]] took up the offer, with the remainder joining EPP proper or other groups such as [[Union for Europe of the Nations]] (UEN) or [[Independence and Democracy]] (IND/DEM). Meanwhile, the ED remained a more [[euroscepticism|eurosceptic]] subgroup within the broader EPP-ED bloc that contributed slightly more than 10% of its total MEPs.  It resisted the trend of incorporating as a [[European political party]].

During the [[2005 Conservative Party leadership election|2005 Conservative leadership contest]], eventual winner [[David Cameron]] pledged to withdraw the Conservatives from the EPP-ED group, while opponent [[David Davis (British politician)|David Davis]] argued in a letter to the editor of ''[[The 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 MEP [[Martin Callanan]] responded in that paper the following day:
{{Blockquote|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.<ref name="callanan">{{cite web|last1=Callanan|first1=Martin|title=Daily Telegraph letters |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3620966/Daily-Telegraph-letters.html |work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=27 February 2016|date=11 November 2005}}</ref>}}

The Czech [[Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic)|Civic Democratic Party]] (ODS), the [[Law and Justice]] (PiS) of Poland and the [[Rally For France]] party were among the first to discuss forming a breakaway group under the [[Movement for European Reform]]. [[Reg Empey|Sir Reg Empey]], Leader of the [[Ulster Unionist Party]] (UUP) has committed his party thereunto<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.uup.org/newsrooms/speeches/text-of-a-speech-by-sir-reg-empey-to-the-agm-of-the-ulster-unionist-council-on-saturday-may-31-2008-.php |title=Leader's speech 2008 |access-date=27 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080924010621/http://www.uup.org/newsrooms/speeches/text-of-a-speech-by-sir-reg-empey-to-the-agm-of-the-ulster-unionist-council-on-saturday-may-31-2008-.php |archive-date=24 September 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>  Its position would be that the [[European 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, the [[Alliance 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 the [[2009 European Parliament election|2009 European elections]]. By then, new factors&mdash;including the collapse of the UEN group&mdash;made conditions for forming a new political grouping much more favourable. On 22 June 2009, the founder members of the [[European 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.

===Members===
The following political parties were associated with the European Democrats at some point:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Country
! colspan="3"| Name
! Ideology
! Membership
|-
| rowspan="2"| {{flag|United Kingdom}}
! style="background:{{party color|Conservative Party (UK)}}"|
| [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]]
| Conservatives
| [[Conservatism]]<br />[[Euroscepticism]]
| 17 July 1979–22 June 2009
|-
! style="background:{{party color|Ulster Unionist Party}}"|
| [[Ulster Unionist Party]]
| UUP
| [[Conservatism]]<br />[[British unionism]]
| 20 July 1999–22 June 2009
|-
| {{flag|Denmark}}
! style="background:{{party color|Conservative People's Party (Denmark)}}"|
| [[Conservative People's Party (Denmark)|Conservative People's Party]]
| DKF
| [[Liberal conservatism]]<br />[[Social conservatism]]
| 17 July 1979–22 June 2009
|-
| {{flag|Spain}}
! style="background:{{party color|People's Alliance (Spain)}}"|
| [[People's Alliance (Spain)|People's Alliance]]
| AP
| [[Liberal conservatism]]<br />[[National conservatism]]
| 10 June 1987–25 July 1989
|-
| {{flag|Italy}}
! style="background:{{party color|Pensioners' Party (Italy)}}"|
| [[Pensioners' Party (Italy)|Pensioners' Party]]
| PP
| [[Conservatism]]<br />[[Soft Euroscepticism]]
| 20 July 1999–22 June 2009
|-
| {{flag|Czech Republic}}
! style="background:{{party color|Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic)}}"|
| [[Civic Democratic Party (Czech Republic)|Civic Democratic Party]]
| PP
| [[National conservatism]]<br />[[Hard Euroscepticism]]
| 14 July 2004–22 June 2009
|-
| {{flag|Portugal}}
! style="background:{{party color|CDS – People's Party}}"|
| [[CDS – People's Party]]
| CDS–PP
| [[Christian democracy]]<br />[[National conservatism]]
| 14 July 2004–22 June 2009
|}