The Group of the European Radical Alliance (ERA) was a heterogeneous political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1994 and 1999. It was formed by regionalist parties from the former Rainbow Group, although its largest and dominant member party was the French Energie Radicale.

History

In 1989 the Rainbow Group split. The Greens went off to form the

Green Group Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a co ...

, whilst the Regionalists stayed in the rump of Rainbow Group. The 1994 elections saw a considerable reduction in Regionalist representation in the Parliament, with only the Canary Isles autonomists,

Lega Nord Lega Nord (; acronym: LN), whose complete name is (), is a right-wing, federalist, populist and conservative political party in Italy. In the run-up of the 2018 general election, the party was rebranded as (), without changing its official n ...

, the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) and People's Union (VU) keeping their MEPs. But Lega Nord had been suspended from the European Free Alliance following its decision to join the coalition Italian government alongside the right-wing National Alliance. Given this reduction in numbers, the weakened EFA were no longer able to maintain their own group. The French Energie Radicale were considered centrist enough to be possible members of the

ELDR Group The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (french: link=no, Groupe du parti européen des libéraux, démocrates et réformateurs, ELDR) was a liberal political group of the European Parliament between 1976 and 2004. The group ...

(their successors, the Radical Party of the Left, became observers in the ELDR Party in 2006) but instead they allied themselves with the members of the Pannella-Reformers List and the rump EFA to form the Group of the European Radical Alliance. The ERA stayed in existence until 1999, when a loss of support forced the European Free Alliance members of the ERA to rejoin with the Green Group to create the

Greens–European Free Alliance The Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) is a political group of the European Parliament composed primarily of green and regionalist political parties. Formed following the 1999 European elections for the 5th European Parliament, th ...

(Greens/EFA) group.

Member parties on 19 July 1994

Sources

*"Regionalist Parties in Western Europe", , de Winter & Türsan 1998
Democracy in the European Parliament
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Democracy in the European Parliament
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Development of Political Groups in the European Parliament
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Development of Political Groups in the European Parliament

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Europe Politique
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/ref>
European Parliament MEP Archives
ref name="t1s58">
European Union Basics FAQ, by Roland Siebelink & Bart Schelfhout
ref name="EUFAQPT3">
OneEurope magazine
ref name="OEM11">
ELDR
ref name="ELDR2006">

References

{{European Parliament groups Former European Parliament party groups Regionalism (politics) 1994 establishments in the European Union 1999 disestablishments in the European Union Organizations established in 1994 Organizations disestablished in 1999 Radical parties