English abbr. ERA Ideology Regionalism | French abbr. ARE Associated organisations European Free Alliance | |
Name European Radical Alliance Formal name Group of the European Radical Alliance | ||
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 form 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, 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, the Scottish National Party (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 (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 (Greens/EFA) group.