Independence / Democracy Group

Independence / Democracy Group
Official abbreviation	IND / DEM
Members	37/732 (2004) 22/785 (2009)
Group leaders	Nigel Farage Hanne Dahl
founding	2004
predecessor	Europe of Democracies and Differences (EDD)
resolution	2009
successor	Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EVS)
Alignment	EU skepticism
European party	EU Democrats (EUD) Alliance of Independent Democrats in Europe (AIDE) European Christian Political Movement (ECPM)

The parliamentary group Independence / Democracy ( Ind / Dem from English: "Independence / Democracy Group") was a Euro-critical group in the 6th electoral term of the European Parliament . She was the successor to the Europe of Democracies and Differences Group (EDD). The main aim of the Ind / Dem was to reduce the influence of the European Union on the national governments (see subsidiarity ). With 37 members of parliament when it was constituted, the Ind / Dem was the smallest parliamentary group in the European Parliament. By the end of the legislative period, the group had shrunk to 22 members. The fraction had the lowest cohesion rate; H. the largest differences in the voting behavior of its members, and the political group whose members attended the parliamentary sessions the least. At the head of the group were the Briton Nigel Farage ( UKIP ) and the Danish Hanne Dahl ( June Bevægelsen ).

In the 2009 European elections , some of the member parties could no longer move into the European Parliament, especially the members of the EU Democrats. In theory, the parliamentary group still had 18 members, too few to retain parliamentary group status. A large part of the remaining parties therefore joined the newly formed Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group.

Parties in the Ind / Dem

In the 2004–2009 legislative period, the Ind / Dem belonged to ten parties from nine different countries, the UK's UK Independence Party (UKIP) being the largest member party. Some of the member parties are part of pan-European parties , namely the EU Democrats (EUD) and the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM); other parties in the group, on the other hand, are not organized at European level. The European party Alliance of Independent Democrats in Europe (AIDE), whose members were also part of the Ind / Dem group, was dissolved on December 31, 2008. To this end, three of the six AIDE MPs announced their membership in the newly founded Libertas European party at the beginning of February 2009 .

Until 2006, the four European parliamentarians of the Lega Nord were also members of the Ind / Dem parliamentary group. The Lega Nord, however, was excluded from the parliamentary group after the then Italian Minister for Reforms, Lega Nord member Roberto Calderoli, had T-shirts with the controversial Mohammed cartoons produced in February 2006, and on February 17, 2006 these demonstratively rolled into one Live interview showed, whereupon violent protests broke out in Libya with 11 dead.

The following are the members of the Ind / Dem parliamentary group at the end of the 2004–2009 legislative period.

country	Political party	European party	Members 2004	Members 2009
Ireland	Kathy Sinnott ( independent )	EUD	1	1
Sweden	Junilistan	EUD	3	2
Denmark	JuneBevægelsen	EUD	1	1
Czech Republic	Nezávislí	AIDE	1	0
Italy	Lega Nord	AIDE	4th	-
France	Mouvement pour la France	AIDE 1	3	3
Greece	Laikós Orthódoxos Synagermós (LAOS)	AIDE 1	1	1
Poland	Liga Polskich Rodzin	AIDE	10	2
Netherlands	ChristenUnie	ECPM	1	1
Netherlands	State-informed Gereformeerde Partij	- 2nd	1	1
United Kingdom	UK Independence Party	-	11	10

¹Two of the three MPs of the Mouvement pour la France and one member of LAOS declared at the beginning of February 2009 their transfer to the newly founded European party Libertas

² The SGP joined the ECPM in 2009 after the end of the electoral term.

Leading faction members

• Nigel Farage ( United Kingdom , Group Leader, UK Independence Party )
• Kathy Sinnott ( Ireland , group leader, non-party )
• Johannes Blokland ( Netherlands , Member of the Board of Directors, ChristenUnie )
• Paul-Marie Coûteaux ( France , Member of the Board of Directors, Mouvement pour la France )
• Georgios Karatzaferis ( Greece , Member of the Board of Directors, LAOS )
• Nils Lundgren ( Sweden , Member of the Board of Directors, Junilistan )
• Vladimír Železný ( Czech Republic , Member of the Board of Directors, Nezávislí )

After the 2009 European elections

In the European elections in 2009 , the Ind / Dem parties alone did not get enough MPs to meet the criteria for the establishment of a parliamentary group in the European Parliament, especially since not a single member of the EUD was re-elected. On the other hand, MPs from other Eurosceptic parties who had not previously belonged to parliament were elected in several countries. On July 1, 2009 UKIP and Lega Nord announced the establishment of a new parliamentary group called Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), which comprised most of the former Ind / Dem members and other small parties. An Ind / Dem member, namely the Dutch ChristenUnie , also joined the new group of European Conservatives and Reformists .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ VoteWatch.eu , Cohesion rates of the political groups in the European Parliament in the legislative period 2004-09 (English)
2. ↑ VoteWatch.eu, presence of parliamentary group members at plenary sessions (English).
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Official site of the Independence and Democracy Group (English)
• Information about all group members