European Federalist Party (historical)

European Federalist Party (EFP) was the name of parties in several European countries. In 1974 the EFP was constituted as a pan-European party . The EFP advocated a united, federalist Europe .

history

Otto Molden had already drawn up a basic European program in 1952 . In the summer of 1959 he organized a conference of European federalists in Vienna , at which the Federal International (FI) was founded.

In 1960 Molden founded the “European Federalist Party of Austria” (EFPÖ), the first national EFP party. Further foundings took place in the following years. The activities were coordinated in the “European Bureau of the Federal International”, whose seat was in Vienna.

The first FI congress took place on November 1st and 2nd, 1969 in Steg. In 1973 the EFP was constituted as a pan-European party. At the first congress of the EFP on November 17, 1974 a basic program was adopted.

From 1979 the German EFP chairman Lutz Roemheld was Secretary General of the EFP. Under him, the party also campaigned for Esperanto as the official language of the European Union .

Austria

The European Federalist Party of Austria (EFP or EFPÖ) was founded on October 1, 1960 in Vienna by Otto Molden and Erik Wintersberger , among others . After a few unsuccessful elections, the EFPÖ stopped most of its activity.

In the early 1970s, Molden reactivated the party. The only election in Vienna, however, was also unsuccessful. In October 1980 the EFPÖ was finally dissolved.

A youth organization existed with the European Legion of Austria . The student organization of the FI was Neues Europa - Union of Federalist Students of Austria (NEUFS).

elections

The EFPÖ ran in the National Council elections in 1962 and achieved 0.5%.

The ÖEFP challenged the election because the city council of Innsbruck only provided the Austrian People's Party, the Socialist Party of Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria and the Communist Party of Austria free of charge with billboards for the National Council elections of 1962. Although the Constitutional Court came to the conclusion in its decision of October 1, 1963 that the freedom of choice can also be impaired by the fact that "one or individual campaigning parties are economically favored over the others by the public sector in campaigning", said the Constitutional Court of the election challenge no consequence. On the grounds that the behavior of the city council had no influence on the election result. The ÖEFP received only 1,595 votes in the Innsbruck constituency.

In the 1963 federal presidential election, Josef Kimmel ran for the EFP and received 4.0% of the vote.

In the election for the district council of Innere Stadt (1st district Vienna) in 1964, the EFPÖ achieved 1.6%.

State elections

year	Salzburg	Vienna
1964	1.19	0.74
1973		0.21

Germany

The German section was founded on January 12, 1964. It also appeared under the name of the European Party (EP) or combinations of EFP and EP and took part in several Bundestag, European and regional elections with little success. In 1994 party work was stopped.

history

Election poster of the EFP in the 1972 federal election campaign

The party was founded by the cosmetics representative Ernst Ruban from Bremen. After a name dispute in 1970 (a group of members advocated the European party ), the office of chairman was transferred to Hans-Wittich von Gottberg, then 40 years old .

In 1975 Karl Hahn became chairman. He and the party concentrated their efforts on the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in 1976 . Among other things, Helmut Palmer was able to win as one of the draft horses. With 0.7% nationwide, however, the 1% hurdle for party funding failed .

Hahn stepped back; he was followed by Hans Joachim Krüger . Participation in the 1979 European elections failed due to a lack of support signatures .

In 1979 Lutz Roemheld took over the chairmanship and general secretariat of the FI. Under Roemheld, the EFP campaigned for Esperanto as a European second language in the 1984 European elections .

In 1987, after internal tensions between the still active state associations of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg, a new board with Kurt Duwe as federal chairman was elected. When collecting signatures for admission to the European elections in 1989 , the EFP had problems again, whereupon Duwe forged a large number of support signatures. The fraud was exposed and Duwe resigned from his position.

The last participation in an election took place on September 29, 1991 in the election for Bremen citizenship . The EFP dissolved in November 1995. Some former supporters of the EFP were active for the political association Europe - Democracy - Esperanto from 2004 .

Bavaria

→ Main article : Bavarian State Party

The Bavarian State Party (BSP), split off from the Bavarian Party in 1967, was the Bavaria section of the EFP in the 1970s. Between January 1977 and November 1978, the BSP was merged with the EFPD. Before and after, both organizations worked closely together. In the mid-1980s the alliance broke up and the EFPD's own Bavarian regional association was founded.

GDR

After the fall of the Wall , the EFP also became active in the GDR .

Election results

In the European elections in 1984 , the EFP received 34,500 votes (0.1%) under the name European Federalist Party - Europe Party . In the Volkskammer election in 1990 in the GDR, the EFP received 3,636 votes (0.03%).

Bundestag elections

year	First votes		Second votes		annotation
1965	-	-	1,015	0.0%	only state list in Bremen
1969	20,927	0.1%	49,650	0.2%	as a "European party", state lists in all countries except Rhineland-Palatinate
1972	7,581	0.0%	24,057	0.1%	State lists in all countries except Rhineland-Palatinate
1990	266	0.0%	-	-	a direct candidate in Göppingen

State elections

year	Baden-Württemberg	Bavaria	Bremen	Hamburg	Hesse	Lower Saxony	North Rhine-Westphalia	Schleswig-Holstein
1967						0.1
1970		0.2 BE		0.3 U	0.1	0.0
1971								0.3 U
1974		0.2 B		0.1
1976	0.7
1978		0.1 B
1980							0.0
1982				0.0
1985							0.0
1986				0.1
1987				0.0
1991			0.0

^B. As the "Bavarian State Party" (between 1970 and the beginning of the 1980s it acted as a kind of sister party to the EFP)

^BE As "Bavarian State Party - European Party"

^E. As a "Europe Party"

Italy

From 1963 to 1965 Alberto Cabella tried to found an Italian section, but it failed.

In the state elections in South Tyrol in 1973 , an EFP ran and received 0.16% of the vote.

In South Tyrol, the Trentino-Tyrolean People's Party joined the EFP as a South Tyrolean section.

In the European elections in Italy in 1979 , the EFP entered as part of the Union Valdôtaine - Federalismo Europa Autonomie list . This came to 166,393 votes (0.47%) and narrowly missed a mandate.

Switzerland

The Swiss section took part in the National Council election from 1971 to 1979 . In 1971 she received 43,931 (0.34%, top candidate Walter Spörli ) in Zurich , 5,227 (0.34%, top candidate Alexander Thaler ) in St. Gallen and 6,570 (0.33%, top candidate Hans Peter Stämpfli ) in Aargau . In 1975 and 1979 it only appeared in Zurich, where it achieved 303 (0.1%) and 145 (0.0%) votes, respectively.

France

The Parti Fédéraliste Européen de France was founded in 1970 . In 1971 the EFP Alsace-Lorraine was founded as a spin-off from the Regional Movement Alsace-Lorraine .

In the 1974 presidential election , Guy Héraud ran for the PFEF, finishing last with 0.08%. With Jean-Claude Sebag , another European federalist from the Mouvement fédéraliste européen (MFE) ran for election, who won 42,007 (0.16%) votes.

The MFE and the Rassemblement pour l'Europe fédérale (REF) were two organizations in competition with the PFEF, which occasionally also ran for elections. The Parti fédéraliste France split off from REF in 1995 and became the new European Federalist Party in 2011 .

Other countries

•  Poland : A section of the EFP was founded in Poland in 1991.
•  Netherlands
•  United Kingdom : In London there was a British Committee of the Federal International . The Cornish Nationalist Party , founded in 1975 and still in existence, was the Cornwall section of the EFP. In the 1979 European elections, Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, was a candidate for Wessex Regionalist & European Federalist .
•  Sweden : founded in 1969
•  Slovakia : The EFP of Slovakia was founded in June 1970.
•  Catalonia : founded in 1972

Successor organizations

On January 13, 1993, the European National Movement (ENM) was founded under Molden's leadership : Congress of European Patriots and Federalists ( European National Movement (ENB): Congress of European Patriots and Federalists ).

In 2011 a Europe-wide party was formed, which is also called the European Federalist Party .

literature

• Richard Stöss : The European Federalist Party (EFP) / Europe Party (EP). In: Richard Stöss (Ed.): Party Handbook . The parties of the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1980. Volume 1: AUD to EFP (= publications of the Central Institute for Social Science Research at the Free University of Berlin. 38). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1983, ISBN 3-531-11570-7 , pp. 1296-1310.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} OM. Otto Molden. European University Institute - Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence 2006.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Lost Voices . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1984, pp. 94-95 ( online - 4 June 1984 ).
3. ↑ Legal Information System of the Federation: GeschäftszahlWI-9/62 Collection number: 4527. October 1, 1963, accessed May 1, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Implementation of power . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1972, p. 50-51 ( Online - Nov. 13, 1972 ).
5. ↑ Dirk van den Boom : Rise and Fall of a German Small Party: The Development of the European Federalist Party (EFP) - Europe Party - The Federalists (Section Germany). In: Dirk van den Boom: Politics on this side of power? On the influence, function and position of small parties in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1999, ISBN 3-8100-2510-0 , pp. 191-213, here pp. 198 f.
6. ^ Sergio Pistone: The Union of European Federalists. From the foundation to the decision on direct election of the European Parliament, 1946–1974 (= Centro Studi sul Federalismo. Studi. 7). Giuffrè Editore, Milan 2008, ISBN 978-88-14-14251-2 , p. 136 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Dirk van den Boom : Politics this side of power ?: On the influence, function and position of small parties in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany , p. 196. At Google Books
8. ↑ http://elezionistorico.interno.it/index.php?tpel=E&dtel=10/06/1979&tpa=Y&tpe=A&lev0=0&levsut0=0&es0=S&ms=S
9. ↑ http://www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/viewOrigDoc.do?id=10045242
10. ↑ Stefan Wolff: Disputed Territories. The Transnational Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict Settlement. BerghahnBooks, New York et al. 2003, ISBN 1-57181-657-7 , p. 73.
11. ^ Anita Gargas, Maciej Wojciechowski: Partie polityczne w Polsce. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Danzig 1991, ISBN 83-03-03465-0 , p. 20.
12. ↑ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, Helen Pendry: Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations. Pinter, London et al. 2000, ISBN 1-85567-264-2 , p. 72.
13. ↑ http://www.election.demon.co.uk/epe2.html