European Free Alliance: Party of Emerging New States in Europe

• 05.11.2015, 23:56
•  NKR

European Free Alliance (EFA) is a party of emerging new states in Europe. EFA stands for the universal right of self-determination and it is called "the voice of voiceless in Europe".  The EFA fights for democracy, end of racism and xenophobia, peaceful conflict resolution etc.

The above sentences are enough to explain why exactly EFA became the first European Party to take Democratic Party of Artsakh (DPA) into its "family". On April 17, during its annual General Assembly taking place in Bautzen, Germany, EFA members voted in favor of accepting the DPA in their group.

Still to get a full picture of the EFA it is important to present a brief history of the party, its members, and its role in the European Parliament.

The European Free Alliance was established in July 1981 after the signing of Charter of Brussels and Declaration of Bastia in 1979 that announced of the commitment to establish a permanent institution in Brussels that would fight for the independence of disparate regions and for the defense of "the Europe for People".

EFA comprises of 17 EU member states and is a political family of 40 member parties with 250 elected parliamentary representatives from European state and sub-state levels. In 1999 EFA made a coalition with Greens and became the sixth largest group in European Parliament. EFA  has 7 representatives in the European Parliament, while the members of Greens/European Free Alliance coalition reaches 50. 

The fact that is worth attention is that the European Free Alliance (EFA) Group in the European Parliament has the representatives from Scotland and Catalonia. In the European Parliament the group was especially active in exposing human rights abuses across the world and in defending civil liberties.

Scottish National Party that supports Scottish independence from the UK is a member of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. EFA became a strong advocate of independence during the referendum in Scotland in 2014. On the occasion Director of European Free Alliance Gunther Dauwen noted to Huffingtonpost.com

"The world economic crisis shows that the dogma of globalization has reached its absolute limits.  People long for decentralization instead of anonymous global uniformity. They want to go in search of their roots and implement positive new policies that address problems in a completely different way."

Thus the information presented above on EFA proves that Democratic Party of Artsakh joins a group of like-minded parties which struggle for the common goal - self-determination of people. Of course this is a great advantage for Artsakh people, as it will allow them to make a step forward from fighting alone to a group fight for their right to determine their own future.