History
The French Gaullists split from the Liberal Group on 21 January 1965 and created a new Group called the "European Democratic Union". The Group was renamed on 16 January 1973 to the "Group of European Progressive Democrats" when the Gaullists were joined by the Irish Fianna Fáil, and renamed itself again on 24 July 1984 to the "Group of the European Democratic Alliance".
The group was never a close alliance. In 1973, the only common platform was on the issues of regionalism, social policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. Fianna Fáil, an Irish nationalist party, was reluctant to identify too closely with the Gaullists, who also had an alliance with the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom at the time.
Read more about this topic: European Progressive Democrats
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
—Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)