The European Conservatives Group (EC) is a conservative group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was founded as the Group 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 was known as the European Democrat Group until its renaming in 2014.
It is affiliated to the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists Europarty.
While it was only the third group to be founded in PACE (after the Socialist Group and the Christian Democrat Group), it was the first to have an official secretariat, which was established in 1977. On 6 July 1978, a proposal to rename the group was submitted, leading to the new name in September 1980.
For many years Vladimir Putin's United Russia party were members of the European Democrat Group.
Membership
As of 23 October 2014, the European Conservatives have the following members:
Unaffiliated members: Ganira Pashayeva, Yuliya L'Ovochkina