National Party of Europe
Encyclopedia
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
during the 1960s to help increase cross-border co-operation and work towards European unity.
The idea of an NPE began when Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
launched his Europe a Nation
Europe a Nation
Europe a Nation was a policy developed by British politician Oswald Mosley as the cornerstone of his Union Movement. It called for the integration of Europe into a single entity....
campaign after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
at a time when contemporaries such as Jean-François Thiriart
Jean-François Thiriart
Jean-François Thiriart was a Belgian far right politician.-Youth:Initially a Socialist, Thiriart eventually adopted a form of non-Marxist, Nationalist Socialism....
were also becoming interested in Europeanism
Europeanism
Although this term is occasionally used to describe support for European integration , it is more commonly used in relation to the idea that Europeans have common norms and values that transcend national or state identity, that have been promoted most actively...
. Attempts soon followed to co-ordinate this growth in pan-European nationalism
Pan-European nationalism
The idea that Europe should be united politically has been present in European culture since the Middle Ages, and inspired several proposals for some form of confederation. With the growth of nationalism in the 19th century, several pan-national ideas of Europe developed, some of them based on...
, although the European Social Movement
European Social Movement
The European Social Movement was a neo-fascist Europe-wide alliance set up in 1951 to promote Pan-European nationalism.The ESM had its origins in the emergence of the Italian Social Movement , which established contacts with like-minded smaller groups in Europe during the late 1940s, setting up...
and the New European Order
New European Order
The New European Order was a neo-fascist Europe-wide alliance set up in 1951 to promote Pan-European nationalism. It was a more radical splinter-group of the European Social Movement....
were loose networks and a more concrete alliance was called for. The idea came to fruition at the Conference of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
in 1962 when the leaders of the Union Movement
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
, the Deutsche Reichspartei
Deutsche Reichspartei
For the party that existed in Imperial Germany, see Free Conservative Party.The Deutsche Reichspartei was a nationalist political party in West Germany...
, the Italian Social Movement
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
, Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe
Jeune Europe was an Europeanist movement formed by Jean Thiriart in Belgium. Emile Lecerf, a later editor of the Nouvel Europe Magazine, was one of Thiriart's associates....
and the Mouvement d'Action Civique
Mouvement d'Action Civique
Mouvement d’Action Civique was a minor far right political movement in Belgium during the 1960s.The origins of the MAC lay in the 1960 independence of the Belgian Congo and the resulting Congo Crisis which saw the vast majority of white colonials, who were largely French-speaking, return to Belgium...
came together to form this group. The European Declaration at Venice was released on March 1, 1962 and contained the following ten aims:
- The creation of Europe a Nation through a common European government.
- The creation of an elected European parliament.
- The continuation of national parliaments with their authority limited to social and cultural matters.
- Economics to be driven by the wage-price mechanism to ensure fair wages and economic growth.
- The creation of an economic alternative to capitalismCapitalismCapitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and communismCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. - More worker control and less bureaucracyBureaucracyA bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
in nationalized industries. - The withdrawal of AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and SovietSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
forces from Europe. - An end to the role of the United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
with the USA, USSR and Europe acting as three equals. - DecolonizationDecolonizationDecolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the unequal relation of polities whereby one people or nation establishes and maintains dependent Territory over another...
with a move to set up single-ethnic governments in former colonies. - Europe to be defined as mainland territory outside of the USSR, the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, overseas territiories and around one-third of AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
The Conference also decided that each member party should seek to change their name to NPE or the local equivalent, that the motto of the new group should be 'Progress - Solidarity - Unity' and that the Flash and Circle
Flash and Circle
The Flash and Circle is the second and best known symbol of the British Union of Fascists. It was chosen to represent "action within unity"...
should serve as the emblem of the movement.
Despite the high ambitions the idea did not come to much. Both the Italian Social Movement and the National Democratic Party of Germany
National Democratic Party of Germany
The National Democratic Party of Germany – The People's Union , is a far right German nationalist party. It was founded in 1964 a successor to the German Reich Party . Party statements self-identify as Germany's "only significant patriotic force"...
, successor to the Deutsche Reichspartei, refused to change their name and only set up a permanent liaison office. Meanwhile Thiriart moved increasingly away from the NPE and towards national communism
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
. As well as this many of the leading neo-fascist groups in Europe took no part in the NPE. Mosley meanwhile had little day to day contect with the Union Movement from his base in France and he retired from politics altogether after his poor showing in Shoreditch and Finsbury
Shoreditch and Finsbury (UK Parliament constituency)
Shoreditch and Finsbury was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Shoreditch district of the East End of London and the adjacent Finsbury area...
at the 1966 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1966
The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...
, effectively drawing the curtain on the NPE.
A group by the name of European Action continues to agitate for the aims of the NPE through its newspaper of the same name, edited by Robert Edwards, although it is an almostly exclusively British movement.