 This move came after a series of attempts by National Alliance to abandon more staunchly national conservatism and Eurosceptic parties and move towards the moderate European centre-right, including a previous application for EPP membership.Ireland's Fianna Fáil joined the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) on 16 April 2009.Fianna Fáil has long been a proponent of European integration and was openly uncomfortable about its European affiliation, with former leader Bertie Ahern often distancing his party from the right-wing positions of his groupmates and describing UEN as purely a "technical arrangement."