European Young Conservatives
Template:Short description Template:Pp Template:Use dmy dates
Template:Infobox political youth organization The European Young Conservatives (EYC) 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 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 European Conservatives and Reformists Party.
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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
It emerged from a split in the centre-right Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC), 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The group gave training to newly established democratic political parties in Russia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was refounded much later by Oliver Cooper.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The EYC generally holds three conference events per year, with the largest being the autumn Freedom Summit.
Freedom Summit
- Cambridge, United Kingdom – 2014
- Cambridge, United Kingdom – 2015
- Porto, Portugal – 2016
- Warsaw, Poland – 2017
Summer Camp
- Stockholm, Sweden – 2014
- Tbilisi, Georgia 2016
- Prague, Czech Republic – 2017
- Leptokarya, Greece – 2018
- Leptokarya, Greece – 2019
Annual Congress
- Warsaw, Poland – 2012
- Prague, Czech Republic – 2013
- Istanbul, Turkey – 2014
- Prague, Czech Republic – 2015
- Brussels, Belgium – 2016
- London, England – 2017
- Warsaw, Poland – 2018
- Amsterdam, Netherlands – 2019
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".<ref name=altright/> Resulting from the dispute, the Finns Party Youth announced its withdrawal on 18 May 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."<ref>The Finns Party Youth leaves European Young Conservatives Template:Webarchive. 18 May 2017.</ref> On 12 June, 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.<ref name=altright>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Membership
The EYC has twenty-five member organisations:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Associate members
Former members
| Country | Organisation | Mother party |
|---|---|---|
| Template:Flagu | Blue Awakening | Conservative People's Party of Estonia |
| Template:Flagu | Finns Party Youth | Finns Party |
| Template:Flagu | AK Party Youth | Justice and Development Party |