Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) was a Eurosceptic political group in the European Parliament. The group was formed following the 2009 European parliamentary election, mostly composed of elements of the Independence/Democracy (IND/DEM) and Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN) groups that had existed during the 6th European Parliament. The group had a loose relationship with Movement for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy (MELD), a European political party founded in 2011. The EFD was a coalition of ten political parties – the largest being the UK Independence Party (UKIP) with eleven seats and the Italian Lega Nord, with nine seats – along with one independent. The EFD is hostile to further European integration, and more nationalistic and anti-immigration than its main predecessor IND/DEM. The EFD was considered to belong on the right-wing to far-right of the political spectrum. On 24 June 2014 EFD group became Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) for the 8th European Parliament, with the continuing membership of just two of the eleven political parties that formed EFD. History Formation Following the 2009 European parliament elections, the Independence/Democracy (IND/DEM) and Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN), two political groups of the European Parliament, were in trouble. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) component of IND/DEM had done well, but the other parties of this group fared very poorly. UEN had also lost MEPs and both groups had fallen under the threshold required for a group to exist. The remnants of both groups needed to find a new group before the constitutive session of the 7th European Parliament on 14 July 2009. Speculation regarding the new group surfaced on 30 June 2009. The name of the group was originally speculated as A Europe of Free Peoples, or A Europe of Peoples for Liberty, or a phrase involving the word Independence or Freedom or Democracy or People. In the absence of an official name, the nascent group was given the placeholder name of Liberty. On 1 July 2009 a press conference was held launching the group. That press conference named the group Europe of Freedom and Democracy. Andreas Mölzer, the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) European Parliament list, announced in July 2009 that FPÖ and EFD were in negotiations over FPÖ joining the group; each side had reservations about the other, with UKIP, the Reformed Political Party (SGP) of the Netherlands, and the