European Young Conservatives


The European Young Conservatives is a grouping of youth wings of conservative and centre-right political parties in Europe.
As of 2014, the group has a membership of 25 political youth organisations from 22 different countries and territories, in addition to four associated members. The EYC is independent and not affiliated with any European political party, but maintains a non-exclusive relationship with the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe.
The EYC is a full member of the International Young Democrat Union.

History

The EYC was founded in August 1993 by the youth wings of the British Conservative Party, Danish Conservative People's Party, and Icelandic Independence Party, under the leadership of Andrew Rosindell, then-chairman of the UK's Young Conservatives.
It emerged from a split in the centre-right Democrat Youth Community of Europe, which separated into two factions: the larger part, following a broadly Christian democratic philosophy; and the smaller part, led by Rosindell, following a broadly conservative philosophy. Two crucial points of disagreement were the scope of economic liberalisation and the desirability of a federal Europe.
From 1993 to 1997, the group was led by Rosindell. The group gave training to newly established democratic political parties in Russia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan.. It was refounded much later by Oliver Cooper.
The EYC generally holds three conference events per year, with the largest being the autumn Freedom Summit.

Freedom Summit

Since 2016, an internal conflict between civic and ethnic nationalists has emerged within the EYC. The ethnic nationalists were opposed to the membership of Turkish and Israeli parties and claimed the EYC has "replaced anti-immigration politics with free market capitalism". Resulting from the dispute, the Finns Party Youth announced its withdrawal on May 18, 2017, with its leader Samuli Voutila saying: "We cannot be members in the same organization as the new Turkish sultan’s youth wing, when it acts against European values." On June 12, the Estonian movement Blue Awakening sent a letter to the EYC demanding the expulsion of the Turkish AK Party Youth within seven days. The letter was later published on Richard B. Spencer's website Altright.com.

Membership

The EYC has twenty-five member organisations:

Associate members

Former members

Footnotes