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Elbląg

Elbląg (Elbing; Elbings) is a city in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland, located in the eastern edge of the Żuławy region with 127,390 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It is the capital of Elbląg County.

Elbląg is one of the oldest cities in the province. Its history dates back to 1237, when the Teutonic Order constructed their fortified stronghold on the banks of a nearby river. The castle subsequently served as the official seat of the Teutonic Order Masters.

Elbląg became part of the Hanseatic League, which contributed much to the city's wealth. Through the Hanseatic League, the city was linked to other major ports like Gdańsk, Lübeck and Amsterdam. Elbląg joined Poland in 1454 and after the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years’ War was recognized as part of Poland in 1466. It then flourished and turned into a significant trading point, but its growth was eventually hindered by the Second Northern War and the Swedish Deluge.

The city was transferred to Prussia after the first partition of Poland in 1772. Its trading role greatly weakened, until the era of industrialization, which occurred in the 19th century. It was then that the famous Elbląg Canal was commissioned. A tourist site and important engineering monument, it has been named one of the Seven Wonders of Poland and a Historic Monument of Poland.

After World War II the city again became part of Poland. The war casualties were catastrophic – especially the severe destruction of the Old Town district, one of the grandest in Prussia.

Today, Elbląg has over 120,000 inhabitants and is a "vibrant city with an attractive tourist base". It serves as an academic and financial center and among its numerous historic monuments is the Market Gate from 1309 and St. Nicholas Cathedral. Elbląg is also known for its archaeological sites, museums and the largest brewery in the country.

Etymology
Elbląg derives from the earlier German-language Elbing, which is the name by which the Teutonic Knights knew both the river here and the citadel they established on its banks in 1237. The purpose of the citadel was to prevent the Old Prussian settlement of Truso from being reoccupied, the German crusaders being at war with the pagan Prussians. The citadel was named after the river, itself of uncertain etymology. One traditional etymology connects it to the name of the Helveconae, a Germanic tribe mentioned in Ancient Greek and Latin sources, but the etymology or language of the tribal name remains unknown. The oldest known mention of the river or town Elbląg is in the form Ylfing in the report of a sailor Wulfstan from the end of the 9th century, in The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan which was written in Anglo-Saxon in King Alfred's reign.

Modern city

The city was almost completely destroyed at the end of World War II. Parts of the inner city were gradually rebuilt, and around 2000 rebuilding was begun in a style emulating the previous architecture, in many cases over the same foundations and utilizing old bricks and portions of the same walls. The western suburbs of the old city have not been reconstructed.

The modern city adjoins about half the length of the river between Lake Drużno and Elbląg Bay (Zatoka Elbląska, an arm of the Vistula Lagoon), and spreads out on both banks, though mainly on the eastern side. To the east is the Elbląg Upland (Wysoczyzna Elbląska), a dome pushed up by glacial compression, 390 km2 in diameter and 200 m high at its greatest elevation.

Views to the west show flat fields extending to the horizon; this part of the Vistula Delta (Żuławy Wiślane) is used mainly for agricultural purposes. To the south are the marshes and swamps of Drużno. The Elbląg River has been left in a more natural state through the city, but elsewhere it is a controlled channel with branches. One of them, the Jagiellonski Channel (Kanał Jagielloński), leads to the Nogat River, along which navigation to Gdańsk is common. The Elbląg Canal (Kanał Elbląski) connecting Lake Drużno with Drwęca River and Lake Jeziorak is a tourist site.

Port of Elbląg
Elbląg is not a deep-water port. The draft of vessels using its waterways must be no greater than 1.5 m by law. The turning area at Elbląg is 120 m diameter and a pilot is required for large vessels. Deep water vessels cannot manoeuvre; in that sense, Elbląg has become a subsidiary port of Gdańsk. Traffic of smaller vessels at Elbląg is within the river and very marginal, while larger vessels were unable to reach the open Baltic Sea after 1945 without crossing into Russian territory. Construction of the Vistula Spit canal was completed in September 2022, allowing vessels access to the Baltic Sea while remaining within Polish territory. The city features three quay complexes, movable cranes, and railways.

Geographical location
Elbląg is located about 55 km south-east of Gdańsk and 90 km south-west of Kaliningrad, Russia. The city is a port on the river Elbląg, which flows into the Vistula Lagoon about 10 km to the north, thus giving the city access to the Baltic Sea via the Russian-controlled Strait of Baltiysk. The Old Town (Stare Miasto) is located on the river Elbląg connecting Lake Drużno to the Vistula Lagoon, about 10 km from the lagoon and 60 km from Gdańsk.

Climate
The climate of Elbląg is an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) closely bordering on a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), owing to its position of the Baltic Sea, which moderates the temperatures, compared to the interior of Poland. The climate is cool throughout the year and there is a somewhat uniform precipitation throughout the year. Typical of Northern Europe, there is little sunshine during the year.

Truso
The settlement was first mentioned as "Ilfing" in The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, an Anglo-Saxon chronicle written in King Alfred's reign using information from a Viking who had visited the area.

During the Middle Ages, the Viking settlement of Truso was located on Lake Drużno, near the current site of Elbląg in historical Pogesania; the settlement burned down in the 10th century. Early in the 13th century the Teutonic Knights conquered the region, built a castle, and founded Elbing on the lake, with a population mostly from Lübeck (today the lake, now much smaller, no longer reaches the city). After the uprising against the Teutonic Knights and the destruction of the castle by the inhabitants, the city successively came under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Poland (1454), the Kingdom of Prussia (1772), and Germany (1871). Elbing was heavily damaged in World War II, and its remaining German citizens were expelled upon the war's end in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. The city became again part of Poland in 1945 and was repopulated with Polish citizens.

The seaport of Truso was first mentioned c. 890 by Wulfstan of Hedeby, an Anglo-Saxon sailor, travelling on the south coast of the Baltic Sea at the behest of King Alfred the Great of England. The exact location of Truso was not known for a long time, as the seashore has significantly changed, but most historians trace the settlement inside or near to modern Elbląg on Lake Drużno. Truso was located at territory already known to the Roman Empire and earlier.

It was an important seaport serving the Vistula River bay on the early medieval Baltic Sea trade routes which led from Birka in the north to the island of Gotland and to Visby in the Baltic Sea. From there, traders continued further south to Carnuntum along the Amber Road. The ancient Amber Road led further southwest and southeast to the Black Sea and eventually to Asia. The east–west trade route went from Truso, along the Baltic Sea to Jutland, and from there inland by river to Hedeby, a large trading center in Jutland. The main goods of Truso were amber, furs, and slaves.

Archaeological finds in 1897 and diggings in the 1920s placed Truso at Gut Hansdorf. A large burial field was also found at Elbląg. Recent Polish diggings have found burned beams and ashes and thousand-year-old artifacts in an area of about 20 hectares. Many of these artifacts are now displayed at the Muzeum w Elblągu.

Prussian Crusade
Attempts to conquer Prussian land began in 997, when Bolesław I the Brave, at the urging of the Pope, sent a contingent of soldiers and a missionary (Adalbert of Prague) to the pagan Prussians, a non-Slavic people, on a crusade of conquest and conversion. The crusade encompassed much of the Baltic Sea coast east of the Polish city of Gdańsk, up to Sambia. Starting in 1209 additional crusades were called for by Konrad of Masovia, who mainly sought to conquer Prussian territory, rather than actually convert the indigenous Prussians. Despite heroic efforts, Old Prussian sovereignty would eventually collapse after a succession of wars instigated by Pope Honorius III and his frequent calls for crusade.

Before the Prussians were finally brought to heel, Polish rulers and the Duchy of Masovia, both by then Christianised peoples, would be continually frustrated in their attempts at northern expansion. Aside from minor border raids, major campaigns against the Prussians would be launched in 1219, 1220, and 1222. After a particularly sound defeat by Prussian forces in 1223, Polish forces in Chełmno, the seat of Christian of Oliva and the Duchy of Masovia, were forced onto the defensive.

In 1226 Duke Konrad I of Masovia summoned the Teutonic Knights for assistance; by 1230 they had secured Chełmno (Culm) and begun claiming conquered territories for themselves under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, although these claims were rejected by the Poles, whose ambition had been to conquer Prussia all along. The Teutonic Order's strategy was to move down the Vistula and secure the delta, establishing a barrier between the Prussians and Gdańsk. The victorious Teutonic Knights built a castle at Elbing.

The Chronicon terrae Prussiae describes the conflict in the vicinity of Lake Drużno shortly before the founding of Elbing:

 * Omnia propugnacula, que habebant in illo loco, qui dicitur (list) ... circa stagnum Drusine ... occisis et captiis infidelibus, potenter expugnavit, et in cinerem redigendo terre alteri coequavit.

 * "All the little redoubts that they had in that place, which are said to be (list) ... and around the Drusine marsh ... he (frater Hermannus magister) assaulted and levelled by rendering them into ash, after the infidels had been killed or captured."

Truso did not disappear suddenly to be replaced with the citadel and town of Elbing during the Prussian Crusade. It had already burned down in the tenth century, with the population dispersed in the area.

Teutonic Order
The Chronicon terrae Prussiae describes the founding of Elbing under the leadership of Hermann Balk. After building two ships, the Pilgerim (Pilgrim) and the Vridelant (Friedland), with the assistance of Margrave Henry III of Margraviate of Meissen, the Teutonic Knights used them to clear the Vistula Lagoon (Frisches Haff) and the Vistula Spit of Prussians:
 * ... et recens mare purgatum fuit ab insultu infidelium ...
 * ... "and the Vistula Spit was purged of the insult of the infidels..."

Apparently the river was in Pomesania, which the knights had just finished clearing, but the bay was in Pogesania. The first Elbing was placed in Pogesania:
 * Magister ... venit ad terram Pogesanie, ad insulam illam ... que est in media fluminis Elbingi, in illo loco, ubi Elbingus intrat recens mare et erexit ibi castrum, quod a nomine fluminis Elbingum appellavit, anno dominice incarnacionis MCCXXXVII. Aliqui referunt, quod idem castrum postea ab infidelibus fuerit expugnatum, et tunc ad eum locum, ubi nunc situm est, translatum, et circa ipsum civitas collocata.

 * "The master ... came to the region of Pogesania, to that island which is in the middle of the Elbing river, in that place where the Elbing enters the Vistula Lagoon, and built there a fort, which he called by the name of the Elbing River, in the year of the incarnation of the Lord, 1237. Others report that the same fort was attacked by the infidels and then was moved to the place where it is now situated, and the city gathered around it."

Both landings were amphibious operations conducted from the ships. The Chronicon relates that they were in use for many years and then were sunk in Lake Drużno. In 1238 the Dominican Order was invited to build a monastery on a grant of land. Pomesania was not secured, however, and from 1240 to 1242 the order began building a brick castle on the south side of the settlement. It may be significant that Elbing's first industry was the same as Truso's had been: manufacture of amber and bone artifacts for export. In 1243 William of Modena created the Diocese of Pomesania and three others. They were at first only ideological constructs, but the tides of time turned them into reality in that same century.

The foundation of Elbing was perhaps not the end of the Old Prussian story in the region. In 1825 a manuscript listing a vocabulary of the Baltic Old Prussian language, commonly known in English as Elbing Vocabulary, was found among some manuscripts from a merchant's house. It contained 802 words in a dialect now termed Pomesanian with their equivalents in an early form of High German.

The origin of the vocabulary remains unknown. Its format is like that of modern travel dictionaries; i.e., it may have been used by German speakers to communicate with Old Prussians, but the specific circumstances are only speculative. The manuscript became the Codex Neumannianus. It disappeared after a British bombing raid destroyed the library at Elbing but before then facsimiles had been made. The date of the MSS was estimated at ca. 1400, but it was a copy. There is no evidence concerning the provenance of the original, except that it must have been in Pomesanian.

In 1246 the town was granted a constitution under Lübeck law, used in maritime circumstances, instead of Magdeburg rights common in other cities in Central Europe. This decision of the Order was in keeping with its general strategy of espousing the trade association that in 1358 would become the Hanseatic League. The Order seized on this association early and used it to establish bases throughout the Baltic. The Order's involvement in the League was somewhat contradictory. In whatever cities they founded the ultimate authority was the commander of the town, who kept office in the citadel, typically used as a prison. Lübeck law, on the other hand, provided for self-government of the town.

Membership in the Hanseatic League meant having important trading contacts with England, Flanders, France, and the Netherlands. The city received numerous merchant privileges from the rulers of England, Poland, Pomerania, and the Teutonic Order. For instance, the privilege of the Old Town was upgraded in 1343, while in 1393 it was granted an emporium privilege for grains, metals, and forest products.

Except for the citadel and churches, Elbing at the time was more of a small village by modern standards. Its area was 300 x. It featured a wharf, a marketplace and five streets, as well as a number of churches. The castle was completed in 1251. In 1288 fire destroyed the entire settlement except for the churches, which were of brick. A new circuit wall was started immediately. From 1315 to 1340 Elbląg was rebuilt. A separate settlement called New Town was founded ca. 1337 and received Lübeck rights in 1347. In 1349 the Black Death struck the town, toward the end of the European plague. After the population recovered it continued building up the city and in 1364 a crane was built for the port.

The German-language Elbinger Rechtsbuch, written in Elbing documented among other laws for the first time Polish common law. The German-language Polish laws are based on the Sachsenspiegel and were written down to aid the judges. It is thus the oldest source for documented Polish common law and is in Polish referred to as the Księga Elbląska (Book of Elbląg ). It was written down in the second half of the 13th century.

In 1410, during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, the inhabitants of the city rebelled against the Teutonic Knights and expelled them, while welcoming Polish troops and paying homage to Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło, who afterwards vested Elbląg with new privileges. As the castle was lightly defended by a Polish garrison, the Teutonic Knights managed to retake it, promising the Polish defenders that they will be given free passage back to Poland. After the castle was taken, the Knights broke their promise and subsequently murdered a number of the captured defenders while imprisoning the rest.

Kingdom of Poland
In February 1440, the city hosted a convention at which delegates from various cities (including Elbing itself) and nobility from the region decided to establish the anti-Teutonic Prussian Confederation. In April and May 1440, further meetings were held in Elbing, at which more towns and noblemen joined the organisation. In 1454, the organisation led the revolt against the rule of the Teutonic Knights, and then its delegation submitted a petition to King Casimir IV of Poland asking him to include the region within the Kingdom of Poland. The King agreed and signed the act of incorporation of the region (including Elbing) to the Kingdom of Poland in March 1454 in Kraków, which sparked the Thirteen Years' War, the longest of all Polish–Teutonic wars. The local mayor pledged allegiance to the Polish King during the incorporation in March 1454, and the burghers of Elbląg recognized Casimir IV as rightful ruler. After paying homage to the King, the city was granted great privileges, similar to those of Toruń and Gdańsk. Since 1454, the city was authorized by King Casimir IV to mint Polish coins. The war ended in a Polish victory in 1466, with the Second Peace of Thorn, in which the Teutonic Order renounced any claims to the city and recognised it as part of Poland.

Within the Kingdom of Poland, the city was administratively part of the Malbork Voivodeship in the newly established autonomous province of Royal Prussia, later also within the larger Greater Poland Province. The city was known to the Polish crown by its Polish name Elbląg. With the creation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, the city was brought under direct control of the Polish crown. As one of the largest and most influential cities of Poland, it enjoyed voting rights during the royal election period in Poland.

Elbląg was often visited by Nicolaus Copernicus between 1504 and 1530.

With the 16th century Protestant Reformation the burghers became Lutherans and the first Lutheran Gymnasium was established in Elbląg in 1535.

From 1579 Elbląg had close trade relations with England, to which the city accorded free trade. English, Scottish, and Irish merchants settled in the city. They formed the Scottish Reformed Church of Elbląg and became Elbląg citizens, aiding Lutheran Sweden in the Thirty Years' War. The rivalry of nearby Gdańsk interrupted trading links several times. By 1618 Elbląg had left the Hanseatic League owing to its close business dealings with England.

Famous inhabitants of the city at that time included native sons Hans von Bodeck and Samuel Hartlib. During the Thirty Years' War, Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna brought the Moravian Brethren refugee John Amos Comenius to Elbląg for six years (1642–1648). In 1642 Johann Stobäus, who composed with Johann Eccard, published the  Preussische Fest-Lieder, a number of evangelical Prussian songs. In 1646 the city recorder Daniel Barholz noted that the city council employed Bernsteindreher, or Paternostermacher, licensed and guilded amber craftsmen who worked on prayer beads, rosaries, and many other items made of amber. Members of the Barholz family became mayors and councillors.

During the Thirty Years' War, the Vistula Lagoon was the main southern Baltic base of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who was hailed as the protector of the Protestants. By 1660 the Vistula Lagoon had gone to Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia, but was returned in 1700.

The poet Christian Wernicke was born in 1661 in Elbląg, while Gottfried Achenwall became famous for his teachings in natural law and human rights law. In 1700–1710 it was occupied by Swedish troops. In 1709 it was besieged, taken by storm on February 2, 1710, by Russian troops with support of Prussian artillery. The city was handed over to Polish King Augustus II in 1712.

The Royal-Polish mathematician and cartographer Johann Friedrich Endersch completed a map of Warmia in 1755 and also made a copper etching of the galley named "The City of Elbing".

During the War of the Polish Succession in 1734, Elbląg was placed under military occupation by Russia and Saxony. The town came again under occupation by Russia from 1758 to 1762 during the Seven Years' War.

Kingdom of Prussia
During the First Partition of Poland in 1772 Elbląg was annexed by King Frederick the Great of the Kingdom of Prussia. Elbing became part of the newly established province of West Prussia in 1773. In the 1815 provincial reorganization following the Napoleonic Wars, Elbing and its hinterland were included within Regierungsbezirk Danzig in West Prussia.

In October and November 1831, various Polish infantry, cavalry and artillery units, engineer corps and sappers of the November Uprising stopped in the city and its environs on the way to their internment locations, whereas the general staff with Commander-in-Chief General Maciej Rybiński and generals Józef Bem, Marcin Klemensowski, Kazimierz Małachowski, Ludwik Michał Pac and Antoni Wroniecki was interned in the city. On December 22, 1831, the Prussian army attempted to pacify the Polish insurgents and launched a charge on the disarmed Poles, who resisted relocation, fearing deportation to the Russian Partition of Poland. Some insurgents eventually left partitioned Poland for the Great Emigration, including Józef Bem, who was expelled by the Prussians in December 1831, and Maciej Rybiński, who left the city in February 1832.

Elbing industrialized. In 1828 the first steamship was built by Ignatz Grunau. In 1837 Ferdinand Schichau started the Schichau-Werke company in Elbing as well as another shipyard in Danzig (Gdańsk) later on. Schichau constructed the Borussia, the first screw-vessel in Germany. Schichau-Werke built hydraulic machinery, ships, steam engines, and torpedoes. After the inauguration of the railway to Königsberg in 1853, Elbing's industry began to grow. Schichau worked together with his son-in-law Carl H. Zise, who continued the industrial complex after Schichau's death. Schichau erected large complexes for his many thousands of workers.

Georg Steenke, an engineer from Königsberg, connected Elbing near the Baltic Sea with the southern part of Prussia by building the Oberländischer Kanal (Elbląg Canal).

Elbing became part of the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany. As Elbing became an industrial city, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) frequently received the majority of votes; in the 1912 Reichstag elections the SPD received 51% of the vote. After World War I, as most of the province of West Prussia was reintegrated with the reborn Polish Republic, Elbing was joined to the German province of East Prussia, and was separated from Weimar Germany by the so-called Polish Corridor.

Nazi Germany
During World War II, under Nazi Germany, a Nazi prison, a forced labour subcamp of the Stalag I-A POW camp, a forced labour subcamp of the Stalag XX-B POW camp, and three subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp were operated in the city. The Germans also enslaved Poles as forced labour in the city. The Polish resistance was active and infiltrated the German arms industry. Dozens of Polish resistance members were held in the local prison, and at least 15 were sentenced to death in the city in 1942.

The prison and forced labour camps were closed and many of the German inhabitants forced to flee as the Soviet Red Army approached the city toward the end of the war. Laid under siege since January 23, 1945, about 65% of the city infrastructure was destroyed, including most of the historical city center. The town was captured by the Soviet Red Army during the night of February 9/10, 1945. During the first days of the siege most of the population of approximately 100,000 persons fled. After the end of war, in spring 1945, the region together with the city became again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s, as a result of the Potsdam Conference. The area was settled by Poles after remaining Germans were either transferred or fled to Germany. As of 1 November 1945 16.838 Germans remained in the town.

History after 1945
Elbląg was part of the so-called Recovered Territories and out of the new inhabitants, 98% were Poles expelled from former eastern Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Parts of the damaged historical city center were completely demolished, with the bricks being used to rebuild Warsaw and Gdańsk. The Communist authorities had originally planned that the Old Town, utterly destroyed during the fighting since January 23, 1945, would be built over with blocks of flats; however, economic difficulties thwarted this effort. Two churches were reconstructed and the remaining ruins of the old town were torn down in the 1960s.

Along with Tricity and Szczecin, Elbląg was the scene of the Polish 1970 protests. Since 1990 the German minority population has had a modest resurgence, with the Elbinger Deutsche Minderheit Organization counting around 450 members in 2000.

Restoration of the Old Town began after 1989. Since the beginning of the restoration, an extensive archaeological programme has been carried out. Most of the city's heritage was destroyed during the construction of basements in the 19th century or during World War II, but the backyards and latrines of the houses remained largely unchanged, and have provided information on the city's history. In some instances, private investors have incorporated parts of preserved stonework into new architecture. By 2006, approximately 75% of the Old Town had been reconstructed.

Elbląg is also home to the Elbrewery, Poland's largest brewery, which belongs to the Żywiec Group (Heineken). The history of the Elblag Brewing Tradition dates back to 1309, when Teutonic Master Siegfried von Leuchtwangen granted brewing privileges to the city. The present brewery was founded in 1872 as the Elbinger Aktien-Brauerei. In the early 1900s, the brewery was the exclusive supplier of Pilsner beer to the court of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Historic buildings
Until World War II there were many Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque houses in Elbląg's Old Town; some of them are reconstructed. Other preserved buildings are:
 * St. Nicholas Cathedral - a monumental 13th-century Gothic church (cathedral only from 1992, before it was a parochial church), destroyed by fire in the late 18th century, then damaged in World War II and repaired
 * Brama Targowa (Market Gate) - erected in 1319
 * St. Mary's Church - former Dominican church, erected in the 13th century, rebuilt in the 14th and 16th centuries; damaged in World War II and reconstructed in 1961 as an art gallery; remnants of cloister are partially preserved
 * Holy Ghost church with hospital, from the 14th century
 * Corpus Christi church from the 14th century
 * Ścieżka kościelna (Church Path) - medieval path between tenements connecting the churches of the Old Town
 * Gothic houses at 13 Świętego Ducha Street and 34 Studzienna Street (reconstruction)
 * Mannierist houses of the Old Town, e.g. Jost van Kampen House at 12 Garbary Street
 * Postmodern reconstruction of the Old Town with new Old Town City Hall
 * Church of Good Shepherd - originally Mennonite, now Polish Old Catholic church from 1890

The Elbląg Canal, built in 1825–44, is a tourist site of Elbląg. The canal is believed to be one of the most important monuments related to the history of engineering, and has been named one of the Seven Wonders of Poland. The canal was also named one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments (Pomnik historii) in 2011. Its listing is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland.

Culture
The primary cultural institutions in Elbląg are the Archaeological and Historical Museum, the Cyprian Norwid Elbląg Library, the EL Gallery Art Center and the Aleksander Sewruk Theater. The museum presents many pieces of art and items of everyday use, including the only 15th century binoculars preserved in Europe.

Institutions of higher education

 * Elbląg Higher School of Arts and Economics (Elbląska Uczelnia Humanistyczno-Ekonomiczna)
 * Faculty of Pedagogy
 * Faculty of Administration
 * Faculty of Health Sciences
 * Faculty of Economics and Politics
 * Elbląg Higher State College of Vocational Education (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa)
 * Faculty of Pedagogy and Foreign Languages
 * Faculty of Economics
 * Faculty of Applied Computer Science
 * Faculty of Technical Sciences
 * Bogdan Jański Higher School, Faculty in Elbląg (Szkoła Wyższa im. Bogdana Jańskiego)
 * Faculty of Management and Land Management
 * Elbląg Diocese Theological Seminary (Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne Diecezji Elbląskiej)
 * Regent College - Foreign Language Teacher Training College (Regent College - Nauczycielskie Kolegium Języków Obcych)
 * Faculty of English Studies

Constituency
Members of Parliament (Sejm) elected from Elbląg constituency.

 * Jan Antochowski, SLD-UP
 * Danuta Ciborowska, SLD-UP
 * Witold Gintowt-Dziewałtowski, SLD-UP
 * Stanisław Gorczyca, PO
 * Jerzy Müller, SLD-UP
 * Adam Ołdakowski, Samoobrona
 * Andrzej Umiński, SLD-UP
 * Stanisław Żelichowski, PSL

Twin towns — sister cities
Elbląg is twinned with:

Former twin towns

 * 🇷🇺 Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia (since 1994 until 2022)
 * 🇷🇺 Baltiysk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia (since 1994 until 2022)
 * 🇧🇾 Novogrudok, Belarus (since 1995 until 2022)

On 28 February 2022, Elbląg ended its partnership with the Russian cities of Kaliningrad and Baltiysk and the Belarusian city of Novogrudok as a response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and its active support by the Republic of Belarus.

Notable people

 * Georg Kleefeld (1522–1576), mayor of Danzig
 * Hans von Bodeck (1582–1658), diplomat and Chancellor of Brandenburg
 * John Amos Comenius (1592–1670), educator
 * Samuel Hartlib (c. 1600–1662), teacher and scientist
 * Christian Wernicke (1661–1725), epigrammist and diplomat
 * Charles Aloysius Ramsay (1677–1680) Scottish-Prussian writer on stenography and translator
 * Johann Friedrich Endersch (1705–1769), mathematician geographer
 * Gottfried Achenwall (1719–1772), statistician
 * Eberhard Gottlieb Graff (1780–1841) German philologist.
 * Wilhelm Baum (1799–1883) a German surgeon
 * Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht (1800–1876), lawyer, member of Göttinger Sieben
 * Bruno Erhard Abegg (1803–1848), statesman of Königsberg
 * Ferdinand Schichau (1814–1896), founder of the Schichau-Werke in Elbing and Danzig
 * John Prince-Smith (1809–1874), liberal economist and politician in Germany
 * Johannes Kohtz (1843–1918), German chess player
 * Reinhold Felderhoff (1865–1919) German sculptor.
 * Maximilian Consbruch (1866–1927), German classical philologist and gymnasium principal
 * Hermann Schulz (1872–1929), German politician
 * Paul Pulewka (1896–1989) German pharmacologist
 * Max Reimann (1898–1977), president of the Communist Party of Germany
 * Erich Brost (1903–1995) publisher
 * Günter Kuhnke (1912–1990), Admiral
 * Hans-Dieter Lange (1926–2012), journalist
 * Hans-Jürgen Krupp (born 1933) German politician, economist and University professor
 * Brigitte Birnbaum (born 1938) German author of books, mainly for children and young people
 * Ursula Karusseit (1939–2019), German actress
 * Bernd Neumann (born 1942), German politician
 * Ortwin Runde (born 1944), mayor of Hamburg from 1997 to 2001.
 * Andrzej Sakson (born 1950), sociologist and director of the Western Institute
 * Henryk Iwaniec (born 1947), mathematician
 * Wojciech Cejrowski (born 1964), journalist, writer
 * Adam Fedoruk (born 1966), footballer
 * Ewa Białołęcka (born 1967), fantasy writer
 * Piotr Wadecki (born 1973), cyclist
 * Maciej Bykowski (born 1977), footballer
 * Adam Wadecki (born 1977), cyclist
 * Dominika Figurska (born 1978), actress
 * Radosław Wojtaszek (born 1987), chess grandmaster
 * Krzysztof Jotko (born 1989), MMA fighter
 * Joanna Wołosz (born 1990), volleyball player

Government websites

 * Municipal website
 * Gmina of Elbląg
 * Elbląg County

Tourism and historical sites

 * CastlesOfPoland.com
 * Interactive map of Elbląg
 * Tourism information
 * Elbing Vocabulary, presentation by Dr. Letis Palmaitis
 * Jewish community of Elbląg on Virtual Shtetl

Web portals

 * Wirtualny Elbląg - portal
 * Elbląska Gazeta Internetowa - portal
 * Elblag24 - portal
 * info.elblag.pl - portal
 * Nocny Elbląg - portal
 * Dziennik Elbląski newspaper
 * Extensive East & West Prussian Historical Materials

title: Elbląg


text:
ESR

ESR may refer to:

Organizations

 * Earlham School of Religion, at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, US
 * E.S.R., Inc., a former American toy manufacturer
 * ESR Rīga, a Soviet Latvian football club, active from 1966 to 1991
 * ESR Technology, a UK company
 * e-Shang Redwood, an Asia focused Real Estate services and investment firm
 * Ethnikó Simvúlio Radhiotileórasis, the Greek National Council for Radio and Television
 * European Society of Radiology
 * Institute of Environmental Science and Research, a New Zealand scientific institute

Science

 * EISCAT Svalbard radar, UHF-band radar at Longyearbyen, Norway
 * Electron spin resonance, a technique used in chemical spectroscopy to identify unpaired electrons and free radicals
 * Electron spin resonance dating, a dating technique used in archaeology and geology
 * Erythrocyte sedimentation rate, the rate at which red blood cells sediment
 * Estrogen receptor, a group of proteins
 * European Sociological Review, sociological scientific journal

Technology

 * Electro-slag remelting, an alloy remelting and refining process
 * Electronic Staff Record, a human resources and payroll system of the UK National Health Service
 * Equivalent series resistance, the resistive parts of the impedance of certain electrical components
 * Emergency sun reacquisition, an attitude control mode of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
 * Extended-support release, software that receives official security updates for an extended period of time
 * M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle, a sniper rifle used by the US Army

Transportation

 * East Somerset Railway, a heritage railway in the UK
 * Eastar Jet (ICAO code), a Korean airline
 * Eastern Suburbs Railway, a railway line in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
 * Ricardo García Posada Airport (IATA code), Chile
 * Emergency speed restriction, a UK railway speed reduction

Other uses

 * Eric S. Raymond (born 1957), American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate
 * Emile Smith Rowe, English professional footballer for Arsenal FC
 * Effort Sharing Regulation a European regulation designed to allocate the Green House Gases reduction objectives among European Union Member States

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: ESR


text:
Europe of Democracies and Diversities

Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) was an Eurosceptic political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1999 and 2004. Following the 2004 European elections, the group reformed as Independence/Democracy (IND/DEM).

title: Europe of Democracies and Diversities


text:
European Free Alliance

The European Free Alliance (EFA) is a European political party that consists of various regionalist,  separatist and minority political parties in Europe. Member parties advocate either for full political independence and sovereignty, or some form of devolution or self-governance for their country or region. The party has generally limited its membership to centre-left and left-wing parties; therefore, only a fraction of European regionalist parties are members of the EFA.

Since 1999, the EFA and the European Green Party (EGP) have joined forces within Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) group in the European Parliament, although some EFA members have joined other groups from time to time, for example the New Flemish Alliance which sits with the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

The EFA's youth wing is the European Free Alliance Youth (EFAY), founded in 2000.

As of 2024, three European regions are led by EFA politicians: Flanders with Jan Jambon of the New Flemish Alliance, Corsica with Gilles Simeoni of Femu a Corsica, and Catalonia with Pere Aragonès of the Republican Left of Catalonia.

History
Regionalists have long been represented in the European Parliament. In the 1979 election four regionalist parties obtained seats: the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Flemish People's Union (VU), the Brussels-based Democratic Front of Francophones (FDF) and the South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP). The SNP, although being predominantly social-democratic, joined the European Progressive Democrats, a conservative group led by the French Rally for the Republic. The VU and the FDF joined the heterogeneous Technical Group of Independents, while the SVP joined the European People's Party group.

In 1981, six parties (VU, the Frisian National Party, Independent Fianna Fáil, the Party of German-speaking Belgians, the Party for the Organization of a Free Brittany and the Alsace-Lorraine National Association), plus three observers (the Union of the Corsican People, UPC, the Occitan Party and the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia, CDC), joined forces to form the European Free Alliance. Regionalist MEPs continued, however, to sit in different groups also after the 1984 election: the SNP in the Gaullist-dominated European Democratic Alliance; the VU, the Sardinian Action Party (PSd'Az) and Basque Solidarity (EA) in the Rainbow Group, together with Green parties; the SVP in the European People's Party group; the CDC with the Liberal Democrats; and Herri Batasuna among Non-Inscrits.

Only after the 1989 European Parliament election did EFA members form a united group, called Rainbow like its green predecessor. It consisted of three Italian MEPs (two for Lega Lombarda and one for the PSd'Az), two Spanish MEPs (one each for the PNV and the Andalusian Party, PA), one Belgian MEP (for VU), one French MEP (UPC), one British MEP (SNP) and one independent MEP from Ireland. They were joined by 4 MEPs from the Danish left-wing Eurosceptic People's Movement against the EU, while the other regionalist parties, including the SVP, Batasuna and the Convergence and Union of Catalonia (CiU) declined to join.

In the 1994 European Parliament election, the regionalists lost many seats. Moreover, the EFA had suspended its major affiliate, Lega Nord, for having joined forces in government with the post-fascist National Alliance. Also, the PNV chose to switch to the European People's Party (EPP). The three remaining EFA MEPs (representing the SNP, the VU and the Canarian Coalition) formed a group with the French Énergie Radicale list and the Italian Pannella List: the European Radical Alliance.

Following the 1999 European Parliament election, in which EFA parties did quite well, EFA elected MEPs formed a joint group with the European Green Party, under the name Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA). In the event the EFA supplied ten members: two each from the Scottish SNP, the Welsh Plaid Cymru, and the Flemish VU, and one each from the Basque PNV and EA, the Andalusian PA and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG).

In the 2004 European Parliament election, the EFA, which had formally become a European political party, was reduced to four MEPs: two from the SNP (Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith), one from Plaid Cymru (Jill Evans) and one from the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC; Bernat Joan i Marí, replaced at the mid-term by MEP Mikel Irujo of the Basque EA). They were joined by two associate members: Tatjana Ždanoka of For Human Rights in United Latvia (PCTVL) and László Tőkés, an independent MEP and former member of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UMDR). Co-operation between the EFA and the Greens continued.

Following the 2008 revision of the EU Regulation that governs European political parties allowing the creation of European foundations affiliated to European political parties, the EFA established its official foundation/think tank, the Coppieters Foundation (CF), in September 2007.

In the 2009 European Parliament election, six MEPs were returned for the EFA: two from the SNP (Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith), one from Plaid Cymru (Jill Evans), one from the Party of the Corsican Nation (PNC; François Alfonsi), one from the ERC (Oriol Junqueras), and Tatjana Ždanoka, an individual member of the EFA from Latvia. After the election, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) also joined the EFA. The EFA subgroup thus counted seven MEPs.

In the 2014 European Parliament election, EFA-affiliated parties returned twelve seats to the Parliament: four for the N-VA, two for the SNP, two for "The Left for the Right to Decide" (an electoral list primarily composed of the ERC), one for "The Peoples Decide" (an electoral list mainly comprising EH Bildu, a Basque coalition including EA), one for "European Spring" (an electoral list comprising the Valencian Nationalist Bloc, BNV, and the Aragonese Union, ChA), one from Plaid Cymru, and one from the Latvian Russian Union (LKS). Due to ideological divergences with the Flemish Greens, the N-VA defected to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group and the EH Bildu MEP joined the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group. Thus, EFA had seven members in the Greens/EFA group and four within ECR.

In the 2019 European Parliament election the EFA gained a fourth seat in the United Kingdom, due to the SNP gaining a third seat to add to Plaid's one. However, the EFA suffered the loss of these seats in January 2020 due to Brexit, which meant SNP and PC MEPs had to leave.

Ideology
In the Brussels declaration of 2000, the EFA codified its political principles. The EFA stands for "a Europe of Free Peoples based on the principle of subsidiarity, which believe in solidarity with each other and the peoples of the world." The EFA sees itself as an alliance of stateless peoples, striving towards recognition, autonomy, independence or wanting a proper voice in Europe. It supports European integration on basis of the subsidiarity-principle. It believes also that Europe should move away from further centralisation and works towards the formation of a "Europe of regions". It believes that regions should have more power in Europe, for instance participating in the Council of the European Union, when matters within their competence are discussed. It also wants to protect the linguistic and cultural diversity within the EU.

The EFA broadly stands on the left wing of the political spectrum. EFA members are generally progressive, although there are some notable exceptions as the conservative New Flemish Alliance, Bavaria Party, Democratic Party of Artsakh, Schleswig Party and Future of Åland, the Christian-democratic Slovene Union and the far right     South Tyrolean Freedom.

Organisation
The main organs of the EFA organisation are the General Assembly, the Bureau and the Secretariat.

General Assembly
In the General Assembly, the supreme council of the EFA, every member party has one vote.

Bureau and Secretariat
The Bureau takes care of daily affairs. It is chaired by Lorena Lopez de Lacalle (Basque Solidarity), president of the EFA, while Jordi Solé (Republican Left of Catalonia) is secretary-general and Anke Spoorendonk (South Schleswig Voters' Association) vice-president and treasurer.

The Bureau is completed by other twelve vice-presidents: Peggy Eriksson (Future of Åland), Jill Evans (Plaid Cymru), Fernando Fuente Cortina (More—Commitment), David Grosclaude (Occitan Party), Wouter Patho (New Flemish Alliance), Frank de Boer (Frisian National Party), Patrik Peroša (The Olive Tree – Slovene Istria Party), Livia Ceccaldi-Volpei (Femu à Corsica), Zsolt Szilágyi (Hungarian Alliance of Transylvania), Ana Miranda (Galician Nationalist Bloc), Roberto Visentin (Pact for Autonomy) and Lorena López Sánchez (New Canaries).

Membership
Before becoming a member party, an organisation needs to have been an observer of the EFA for at least one year. Only one member party per region is allowed. If a second party from a region wants to join the EFA, the first party needs to agree, at which point these two parties will then form a common delegation with one vote. The EFA also recognises friends of the EFA, a special status for regionalist parties outside of the European Union.

The following is the list of EFA members and former members.

title: European Free Alliance


text:
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE Party) is a European political party composed of 76 national-level parties from across Europe, mainly active in the European Union. The ALDE Party is affiliated with Liberal International and a recognised European political party, incorporated as a non-profit association under Belgian law.

It was founded on 26 March 1976 in Stuttgart as a confederation of national political parties under the name "Federation of Liberal and Democrat Parties in Europe" and renamed "European Liberals and Democrats" (ELD) in 1977 and "European Liberal Democrats and Reformists" (ELDR) in 1986. On 30 April 2004, the ELDR was reformed as an official European party, the "European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party" (ELDR Party).

On 10 November 2012, the party chose its current name ALDE Party, taken from its then-European Parliament group, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), which had been formed on 20 July 2004 in conjunction with the European Democratic Party (EDP). Prior to the 2004 European election, the European party had been represented through its own group, the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party Group (ELDR) Group. In June 2019, the ALDE group was succeeded by Renew Europe.

, ALDE is represented in European Union institutions, with 70 MEPs and five members of the European Commission. Of the 27 EU member states, there are three with ALDE-affiliated Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte (VVD) in the Netherlands, Kaja Kallas (Estonian Reform Party) in Estonia and Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) in Belgium. ALDE member parties are also in governments in nine other EU member states: France, Croatia, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Slovenia, Lithuania and Germany. Some other ALDE member parties offer parliamentary support to governments in Croatia, Italy, and Romania. Charles Michel, former Belgian Prime Minister, is the current President of the European Council.

ALDE's think tank is the European Liberal Forum, led by Hilde Vautmans, MEP, and gathers 46 member organisations. The youth wing of ALDE is the European Liberal Youth (LYMEC), which is predominantly based upon youth and student liberal organisations but contains also a small number of individual members. LYMEC is led by Dan-Aria Sucuri.

In 2011, ALDE Party became the first pan-European party to create the status of individual membership. Since then, between 1000 and close to 3000 members (the numbers fluctuate annually) maintained direct membership in the ALDE Party from several EU countries. Over 40 coordinators mobilised liberal ideas, initiatives and expertise across the continent under the leadership of the Steering Committee, which was first chaired by Julie Cantalou. The ALDE Party took a step further in the direction of becoming a truly pan-European party when granting voting rights to individual members’ delegates at the Party Congress. Individual membership was eventually discontinued in 2023.

Bureau
The day-to-day management of the ALDE Party is handled by the Bureau, the members of which are:

Presidents

 * 1978–1981: 🇱🇺 Gaston Thorn
 * 1981–1985: 🇧🇪 Willy De Clercq
 * 1985–1990: 🇱🇺 Colette Flesch
 * 1990–1995: 🇧🇪 Willy De Clercq
 * 1995–2000: 🇩🇰 Uffe Ellemann-Jensen
 * 2000–2005: 🇩🇪 Werner Hoyer
 * 2005–2011: 🇧🇪 Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck
 * 2011–2015: 🇬🇧 Graham Watson
 * 2015–2021: 🇳🇱 Hans van Baalen
 * 2021–2024: co-Presidents 🇮🇪 Timmy Dooley 🇧🇬 Ilhan Kyuchyuk

History of pan-European liberalism

Pan-European liberalism has a long history dating back to the foundation of Liberal International in April 1947. On 26 March 1976, the Federation of Liberal and Democrat Parties in Europe was established in Stuttgart. The founding parties of the federation were the Free Democratic Party of Germany, Radical Party of France, Venstre of Denmark, Italian Liberal Party, Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Democratic Party of Luxembourg. Observer members joining later in 1976 were the Danish Social Liberal Party, French Radical Party of the Left and Independent Republicans, British Liberal Party, and Italian Republican Party. In 1977, the federation was renamed European Liberals and Democrats, in 1986, European Liberal Democrats and Reformists.

It evolved into the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR Party) in 2004, when it was founded as an official European party under that name and incorporated under Belgian law at an extraordinary Congress in Brussels, held on 30 April 2004 the day before the enlargement of the European Union. At the same time the matching group in the European Parliament, the European Liberal Democrats and Reformists Group allied with the members of the newly elected European Democratic Party, forming the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) with a matching ALDE Group in the European Parliament.

On 10 November 2012, the ELDR Party adopted the name of the alliance between the two parties, to match the parliamentary group and the alliance.

On 12 June 2019, the ALDE group was succeeded by a new enlarged group, Renew Europe, which primarily consists of ALDE and EDP member parties and France's La République En Marche! (LREM).

European Commissioners
ALDE Member Parties contribute five out of the 27 members of the European Commission:

Membership
The ALDE party has 59 full members and 18 affiliated members from EU and non-EU countries.

Only delegates from full members of the ALDE Party and its youth wing LYMEC, together with the delegates of the ALDE Party Supporters and ALDE Party Bureau members, are permitted to vote at the ALDE Congress and Council. Affiliated member parties have non-voting delegates.

Affiliated members
• 🇦🇲 Armenian National Congress

• 🇦🇲 Bright Armenia

• 🇦🇿 Musavat

• 🇧🇾 Party of Freedom and Progress

• 🇭🇷 Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats

• 🇭🇷 Civic Liberal Alliance

• 🇭🇷 Croatian Social Liberal Party

• Republican Party of Georgia

•  Free Democrats

•  Droa

• 🇮🇹 Team K

• 🇲🇩 Liberal Party

• 🇵🇱 .Nowoczesna

• 🇷🇺 People's Freedom Party

• 🇺🇦 Civil Position

• 🇺🇦 Power of the People

•  Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

• 🇬🇮 Liberal Party of Gibraltar

Former members
• 🇧🇬 National Movement for Stability and Progress

• 🇨🇿 ANO 2011 (2014–2024)

• 🇮🇹 Italy of Values

• 🇱🇹 Labour Party (2004–2021)

• 🇲🇹 Democratic Party (2017–2020)

• Social Democratic Party (until 1996)

•  National Liberal Party (2007–2014)

•  Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (2015–2019)

•  Party of Alenka Bratušek (2014–2022)

•  List of Marjan Šarec (2018–2022)

•  Modern Centre Party (2014–2021)

• 🇪🇸 Catalan European Democratic Party (until 2018)


text:
European People's Party Group

The European People's Party Group (EPP Group) is a political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent MEPs and/or deputies from unaffiliated national parties. The EPP Group comprises politicians of Christian democratic, conservative and liberal-conservative orientation.

The European People's Party was officially founded as a European political party in 1976. However, the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament has existed in one form or another since June 1953, from the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, making it one of the oldest European-level political groups. It has been the largest political group in the European Parliament since 1999.

History
The Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (the predecessor of the present day European Parliament) first met on 10 September 1952 and the first Christian Democratic Group was unofficially formed the next day, with Maan Sassen as president. The group held 38 of the 78 seats, two short of an absolute majority. On 16 June 1953, the Common Assembly passed a resolution enabling the official formation of political groups; further, on 23 June 1953 the constituent declaration of the group was published and the group was officially formed.

The Christian Democrat group was the biggest group at formation, but as time wore on, it lost support and was the second-biggest group by the time of the 1979 elections. As the European Community expanded into the European Union, the dominant centre-right parties in the new member states were not necessarily Christian democratic, and the EPP (European People's Party, the pan-continental political party founded in 1976, to which all group members are now affiliated) feared being sidelined. To counter this, the EPP expanded its remit to cover the centre-right regardless of tradition and pursued a policy of integrating liberal-conservative parties.

This policy led to Greek New Democracy and Spanish People's Party MEPs joining the EPP Group. The British Conservative Party and Danish Conservative People's Party tried to maintain a group of their own, named the European Democrats (ED), but lack of support and the problems inherent in maintaining a small group forced ED's collapse in the 1990s, and its members crossed the floor to join the EPP Group. The parties of these MEPs also became full members of the EPP (with the exception of the British Conservative Party, which did not join) and this consolidation process of the European centre-right continued during the 1990s with the acquisition of members from the Italian party Forza Italia. However, the consolidation was not unalloyed and a split emerged with the Eurosceptic MEPs who congregated in a subgroup within the Group, also called the European Democrats (ED).

Nevertheless, the consolidation held through the 1990s, assisted by the group being renamed the European People's Party – European Democrats (EPP-ED) Group; after the 1999 European elections, the EPP-ED reclaimed its position as the largest group in the Parliament from the Party of European Socialists (PES) Group.

Size was not enough, however: the group did not have a majority. It continued therefore to engage in the Grand Coalition (a coalition with the PES Group, or occasionally the Liberals) to generate the majorities required by the cooperation procedure under the Single European Act.

Meanwhile, the parties in the European Democrats subgroup were growing restless, with the establishment in July 2006 of the Movement for European Reform, and finally left following the 2009 elections, when the Czech Civic Democratic Party and British Conservative Party formed their own right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group on 22 June 2009, abolishing the European Democrats subgroup from that date. The EPP-ED Group reverted to its original name – the EPP Group – immediately.

7th European Parliament
In the 7th European Parliament, the EPP Group remained the largest parliamentary group with 275 MEPs. It is currently the only political group in the European parliament to fully represent its corresponding European political party, i.e. the European People's Party. The United Kingdom was the only member state to not be represented in the group; this state of affairs ceased temporarily on 28 February 2018, when two MEPs suspended from the British Conservative Party left the ECR Group and joined the EPP. The two MEPs later joined a breakaway political party in the UK, The Independent Group.

8th European Parliament
After twelve member parties in the EPP called for Hungary's Fidesz's expulsion or suspension, Fidesz's membership was suspended with a common agreement on 20 March 2019. The suspension was applied only to the EPP but not to its group in the Parliament. On 3 March 2021, Fidesz decided to leave the EPP group, after the group's new rules, however still kept their membership in the party. On 18 March 2021, Fidesz decided to leave the European People's Party.

9th European Parliament
In the 9th European Parliament, the EPP won 182 seats out of a total of 751. They formed a coalition with Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and Renew Europe to elect Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission.

10th European Parliament
On June 18, 6 new parties joined the group, including the Hungarian Respect and Freedom Party (TISZA) and their 7 MEPs, the Dutch Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) and Czech Mayors and Independents (STAN), each with 2 MEPs, as well as the Danish Liberal Alliance, Dutch New Social Contract (NSC), and the German Family Party, each with 1 MEP. Combined, the group expanded by 14 MEPs.

Later that day, The Hungarian Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) announced their departure from the EPP Group, due to the admission of the Tisza Party.

On 19 June, the group re-elected Manfred Weber as Chairman of the group, and the 10 Vice-Chairpersons.

Membership at formation
The 38 members in the group on 11 September 1952 were as follows:

Organisation
The EPP Group is governed by a collective (referred to as the Presidency) that allocates tasks. The Presidency consists of the Group Chair and a maximum of ten Vice-Chairs, including the Treasurer. The day-to-day running of the EPP Group is performed by its secretariat in the European Parliament, led by its Secretary-General. The Group runs its own think-tank, the European Ideas Network, which brings together opinion-formers from across Europe to discuss issues facing the European Union from a centre-right perspective.

The EPP Group Presidency includes:

The chairs of the group and its predecessors from 1952 to 2024 are as follows:

In the news
Activities performed by the group in the period between June 2004 and June 2008 include monitoring elections in Palestine and Ukraine; encouraging transeuropean rail travel, telecoms deregulation, energy security, a common energy policy, the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Union, partial reform of the CAP and attempts to tackle illegal immigration;  denouncing Russian involvement in South Ossetia;     supporting the Constitution Treaty   and the Lisbon Treaty;  debating globalisation, relations with China, and Taiwan; backing plans to outlaw Holocaust denial; nominating Anna Politkovskaya for the 2007 Sakharov Prize; expelling Daniel Hannan from the Group; the discussion about whether ED MEPs should remain within EPP-ED or form a group of their own;   criticisms of the group's approach to tackling low turnout for the 2009 elections; the group's use of the two-President arrangement; and the group's proposal to ban the Islamic Burka dress across the EU.

Parliamentary activity profile

The debates and votes in the European Parliament are tracked by its website and categorised by the groups that participate in them and the rule of procedure that they fall into. The results give a profile for each group by category and the total indicates the group's level of participation in Parliamentary debates. The activity profile for each group for the period 1 August 2004 to 1 August 2008 in the Sixth Parliament is given on the diagram on the right. The group is denoted in blue.

The website shows the group as participating in 659 motions, making it the third most active group during the period.

Publications
The group produces many publications, which can be found on its website. Documents produced in 2008 cover subjects such as dialogue with the Orthodox Church, study days, its strategy for 2008–09, Euro-Mediterranean relations, and the Lisbon Treaty. It also publishes a yearbook and irregularly publishes a presentation, a two-page summary of the group.

Academic analysis
The group has been characterised as a three-quarters-male group that, prior to ED's departure, was only 80% cohesive and split between centre-right Europhiles (the larger EPP subgroup) and right-wing Eurosceptics (the smaller ED subgroup). The group as a whole is described as ambiguous on hypothetical EU taxes, against taxation, environmental issues, social issues (LGBT rights, abortion, euthanasia) and full Turkish accession to the European Union, and for a deeper Federal Europe, deregulation, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and controlling migration into the EU.

title: European People's Party Group


text:
The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL

The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL is a left-wing political group of the European Parliament established in 1995. Before January 2021, it was named the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (Gauche unitaire européenne/Gauche verte nordique, GUE/NGL).

The group is mainly composed of political parties with democratic socialist, anti-capitalist, and soft Eurosceptic orientations, as well as communist parties.

History
In 1995, the enlargement of the European Union led to the creation of the Nordic Green Left (NGL) group of parties. The NGL merged with the Confederal Group of the European United Left (GUE) on 6 January 1995, forming the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left. The NGL suffix was added to the name of the expanded group at the insistence of Swedish and Finnish MEPs. The group initially consisted of MEPs from the Finnish Left Alliance, the Swedish Left Party, the Danish Socialist People's Party, the United Left of Spain (including the Spanish Communist Party), the Synaspismos of Greece, the French Communist Party, the Portuguese Communist Party, the Communist Party of Greece, and the Communist Refoundation Party of Italy.

In 1998, Ken Coates, an MEP expelled from the UK Labour Party and who co-founded the Independent Labour Network, joined the group.

In 1999, the German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Greek Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI) joined as full members, while the five MEPs elected from the list of the French Trotskyist alliance LO–LCR and the one MEP for the Dutch Socialist Party joined as associate members.

In 2002, four MEPs from the French Citizen and Republican Movement and one from the Danish People's Movement against the EU also joined the group. In 2004 no MEPs were elected from LO–LCR and DIKKI — which was undergoing a dispute with its leader over the party constitution — and the French Citizen and Republican Movement did not put forward candidates. MEPs from the Portuguese Left Bloc, the Irish Sinn Féin, the Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus, and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia joined the group. The Danish Socialist People's Party, a member of the Nordic Green Left, left the group to instead sit in the Greens–European Free Alliance group.

In 2009, no MEPs were elected from the Italian Communist Refoundation Party and the Finnish Left Alliance. MEPs from the Irish Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Latvia, and the French Left Party joined the group.

In 2013, one MEP from the Croatian Labourists – Labour Party also joined the group. In 2014 no MEPs were elected from the Irish Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Latvia, and the Croatian Labourists – Labour Party. MEPs from the Spanish Podemos as well as EH Bildu and the Dutch Party for the Animals joined the group, while MEPs from the Italian Communist Refoundation Party and the Finnish Left Alliance re-entered parliament and rejoined. The Communist Party of Greece, a founding member of the group, decided to leave and instead sit as Non-Inscrits.

In 2019, no MEPs were elected from the French Communist Party, the Danish People's Movement against the EU, the Dutch Socialist Party, and from the Italian parties The Left and the Communist Refoundation Party. MEPs from the French La France insoumise, the Belgian Workers' Party of Belgium, the German Human Environment Animal Protection, the Irish Independents 4 Change, and the Danish Red-Green Alliance joined the group.

In 2024, MEPs from the Italian parties Italian Left and Five Star Movement joined the group.

Chairpeople

 * Since 2019 The Left group has had two co-chairpeople.

Positions
According to its 1994 constituent declaration, the group is opposed to the present European Union political structure, but it is committed to integration. That declaration sets out three aims for the construction of another European Union, the total change of institutions to make them fully democratic, breaking with neoliberal monetarist policies, and a policy of co-development and equitable cooperation. The group wants to disband the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and strengthen the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The group is divided between reformism and revolution, leaving it up to each party to decide on the manner they deem best suited to achieve their aims. As such, it has simultaneously positioned itself as insiders within the European institutions, enabling it to influence the decisions made by co-decision; and as outsiders by its willingness to seek another Europe, which would abolish the Maastricht Treaty.

GUE/NGL has been split on the issue of Russia. On 1 March 2022, 7 MEPs out of the group's 37 voted against the parliament's resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while 10 also abstained in the vote that passed 637–14. Even before the war, there have been tensions in the group, especially with the Irish MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly working to defuse sanctions on Russia placed because of the downing of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

Member parties
MEPs may be full or associate members.
 * Full members must accept the constitutional declaration of the group.
 * Associate members need not fully do so, but they may sit with the full members.

National parties may be full or associate members.
 * Full member parties must accept the constitutional declaration of the group.
 * Associate member parties may include parties that do not have MEPs (e. g., French Trotskyist parties which did not get elected in the 2004 European elections), are from states that are not part of the European Union, or do not wish to be full members.

9th European Parliament
The initial member parties for the 9th European Parliament was determined at the first meeting on 29 May 2019.


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European Democrats

The European Democratic Group, more commonly known as European Democrats, was a conservative political group that operated in the European Parliament between 1979 and 1992. At its height in July 1979, it had 63 MEPs.

Ideologically, ED was more Eurosceptic and right-wing than its centre-right rival European People's Party (EPP). Its members included parties such as the UK Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher, Danish Conservative People's Party, and Spanish People's Alliance. In 1992, ED became a subgroup of EPP, now the European People's Party–European Democrats. ED split from EPP in 2009 to re-create the group as the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

1979–1992
The European Democratic Group (ED) was formed on 17 July 1979 by British Conservative Party, Danish Conservative People's Party and other MEPs after their success in the 1979 elections. It supplanted the earlier European Conservative Group.

In the late seventies and early eighties, the ED was the third-largest political group in the European Parliament.

However, the group saw its membership fall sharply in the late 1980s, as many centre-right members moved to the rival European People's Party (EPP), dominated by the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), Italian Christian Democrats and the ideology of Christian democracy in general. The ED had been somewhat further from the political centre and less pro-European than the EPP. Largely isolated, even hardline eurosceptics like Margaret Thatcher conceded that the British Conservatives could not be effectively heard from such a peripheral group.

1992–1999
On 1 May 1992, the ED (now largely composed of UK Conservative Party members) dissolved, and its remaining members were accorded "associated party" status in the European People's Party Group; that is, being part of the parliamentary group without retaining actual membership in the EPP Europarty organisation. This was considered essential for the Conservatives, as the EPP was generally seen as quite favourable to European integration, a stance at odds with their core ideology. The Conservatives' relationship to the EPP would become a sore point in the following years, particularly for the eurosceptic general membership in Britain. Then-leader of the British Conservative Party William Hague hoped to put the issue to rest by negotiating a new arrangement in 1999 by which the EPP's parliamentary group would rebrand itself as the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), with the "European Democrat" nomenclature returning after a seven-year hiatus. This was intended to nominally underscore the Conservatives' status apart from the rest of EPP, and it was hoped that with the coming enlargement of the European Union numerous newly involved right-wing parties, averse to the EPP proper for its perceived European federalism, would be willing to instead enter the ED subgroup, growing the overall alignment.

1999–2009
The arrangement proved to do little to appease opposition. Hague's successor, Iain Duncan Smith, made a concerted drive at one point to resurrect the European Democratic Group, but backed off when it became clear that Conservative MEPs would not move voluntarily. The hope that multiple Central and European parties would join ED also proved to be dubious, as only the Czech Civic Democratic Party took up the offer, with the remainder joining EPP proper or other groups such as Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) or Independence and Democracy (IND/DEM). Meanwhile, the ED remained a more eurosceptic subgroup within the broader EPP-ED bloc that contributed slightly more than 10% of its total MEPs. It resisted the trend of incorporating as a European political party.

During the 2005 Conservative leadership contest, eventual winner David Cameron pledged to withdraw the Conservatives from the EPP-ED group, while opponent David Davis argued in a letter to the editor of The Daily Telegraph that the current ED arrangement allowed the Conservatives to maintain suitable distance from EPP while still having influence in the largest parliamentary grouping. Conservative/EPP-ED MEP Martin Callanan responded in that paper the following day: "SIR - David Davis (Letter, November 10) is sadly misinformed about our Conservative MEPs' relationship with the European People's Party (EPP) in the European Parliament. He claims that 'Conservatives are members of the European Democrat group, which forms an alliance with the EPP'. In reality, though, the ED does not exist. It has no staff or money and is, in effect, a discussion group within the EPP. […] Far from being a symbolic step, as Mr Davis suggests, leaving the EPP is the one hard, bankable commitment to have come out of this leadership campaign."

The Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the Law and Justice (PiS) of Poland and the Rally For France party were among the first to discuss forming a breakaway group under the Movement for European Reform. Sir Reg Empey, Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has committed his party thereunto Its position would be that the European Union should exist, but as a looser supranational organisation than at present, making the group less eurosceptic than the UEN and IND/DEM groups. Some members from the above parties founded a new organisation, the Alliance for an Open Europe, in the midst of this debate, with broadly similar objectives.

Cameron initially intended to form the new group in 2006, though this aspiration had to be cancelled due to their main prospective partners, the ODS and PiS, being unable or unwilling to break away from their then-groupings; the new grouping was put on hiatus until the 2009 European elections. By then, new factors—including the collapse of the UEN group—made conditions for forming a new political grouping much more favourable. On 22 June 2009, the founder members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, all signatories of the Prague Declaration announced that they were to leave the EPP-ED, and in virtue of that fact, the European Democrats movement. This announcement ended the 30-year existence of the European Democrats in the European Parliament.

Members
The following political parties were associated with the European Democrats at some point:

European Democrats in PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe)
The European Democrat Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was founded as the Group of Independent Representatives in 1970 by British and Scandinavian members of PACE, having about 35–40 members from the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Sweden and Switzerland. It adopted the European Democrats Group name in September 1980, later becoming the European Conservatives Group in 2014.

title: European Democrats


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Epistle to the Ephesians

The Epistle to the Ephesians is the tenth book of the New Testament. According to its text, the letter was written by Paul the Apostle, an attribution that Christians traditionally accepted. However, starting in 1792, some scholars have claimed the letter is actually Deutero-Pauline, meaning that it is pseudepigrapha written in Paul's name by a later author strongly influenced by Paul's thought. According to one scholarly source, the letter was probably written "by a loyal disciple to sum up Paul's teaching and to apply it to a new situation fifteen to twenty-five years after the Apostle's death".

Themes
According to New Testament scholar Daniel Wallace, the theme may be stated pragmatically as "Christians, get along with each other! Maintain the unity practically which Christ has effected positionally by his death."

Another major theme in Ephesians is the keeping of Christ's body (that is, the Church) pure and holy. "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

In the second part of the letter, Ephesians 4:17–6:20, the author gives practical advice in how to live a holy, pure, and Christ-inspired lifestyle.

Composition
According to tradition, the Apostle Paul wrote the letter while he was in prison in Rome (around AD 62). This would be about the same time as the Epistle to the Colossians (which in many points it resembles) and the Epistle to Philemon. However, many critical scholars have questioned the authorship of the letter and suggest that it may have been written between AD 80 and 100.

Authorship
The first verse in the letter identifies Paul as its author. While early lists of New Testament books, including the Muratorian fragment and possibly Marcion's canon (if it is to be equated with the Epistle to the Laodiceans), attribute the letter to Paul, more recently there have been challenges to Pauline authorship on the basis of the letter's characteristically non-Pauline syntax, terminology, and eschatology.

Biblical scholar Harold Hoehner, surveying 279 commentaries written between 1519 and 2001, found that 54% favored Pauline authorship, 39% concluded against Pauline authorship and 7% remained uncertain. Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling found that of six authoritative scholarly references, "four of the six decide for pseudonymity, and the other two (Peake's Commentary on the Bible and the Jerome Biblical Commentary) recognize the difficulties in maintaining Pauline authorship. Indeed, the difficulties are insurmountable." Bible scholar Raymond E. Brown asserts that about 80% of critical scholarship judges that Paul did not write Ephesians.

There are four main theories in biblical scholarship that address the question of Pauline authorship.
 * The traditional view that the epistle is written by Paul is supported by scholars that include Ezra Abbot, Ragnar Asting, Markus Barth, F. F. Bruce, A. Robert, and André Feuillet, Gaugler, Grant, Harnack, Haupt, Fenton John Anthony Hort, Klijn, Johann David Michaelis, A. Van Roon, Sanders, Schille, Klyne Snodgrass, John R. W. Stott, Frank Thielman, Daniel B. Wallace, Brooke Foss Westcott, and Theodor Zahn. For a defense of the Pauline authorship of Ephesians, see Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, Harold Hoehner, pp. 2–61.
 * A second position suggests that Ephesians was dictated by Paul with interpolations from another author. Some of the scholars that espouse this view include Albertz, Benoit, Cerfaux, Goguel, Harrison, H. J. Holtzmann, Murphy-O'Connor, and Wagenführer.
 * A third group thinks it improbable that Paul authored Ephesians. Among this group are Allan, Beare, Brandon, Rudolf Bultmann, Conzelmann, Dibelius, Goodspeed, Kilsemann, J. Knox, W.L. Knox, Kümmel, K and S Lake, Marxsen, Masson, Mitton, Moffatt, Nineham, Pokorny, Schweizer, and J. Weiss.
 * Still other scholars suggest there is a lack of conclusive evidence. Some of this group are Cadbury, Julicher, McNeile, and Williams.

Place, date, and purpose of the writing of the letter
While most English translations indicate that the letter was addressed to "the saints who are in Ephesus" (1:1), the words "in Ephesus" do not appear in the best and earliest manuscripts of the letter, leading most textual critics, like Bart Ehrman, to regard the words as an interpolation. This lack of any internal references to Ephesus in the early manuscripts may have led Marcion, a second-century heresiarch who created the first New Testament canon, to believe that the letter was actually addressed to the church at Laodicea. For details see Epistle to the Laodiceans.

Furthermore, if Paul is regarded as the author, the impersonal character of the letter, which lacks personal greetings or any indication that the author has personal knowledge of his recipients, is incongruous with the account in Acts of Paul staying more than two years in Ephesus. For these reasons, most regard Ephesians to be a circular letter intended for many churches. The Jerusalem Bible notes that some critics think the words "who are" would have been followed by a blank to be filled in with the name of "whichever church was being sent the letter".

If Paul was the author of the letter, then it was probably written from Rome during Paul's first imprisonment, and probably soon after his arrival there in the year 62, four years after he had parted with the Ephesian elders at Miletus. However, scholars who dispute Paul's authorship date the letter to between 70 and 80 AD. In the latter case, the possible location of the authorship could have been within the church of Ephesus itself. Ignatius of Antioch seemed to be very well versed in the epistle to the Ephesians, and mirrors many of his own thoughts in his own epistle to the Ephesians.

Outline
Ephesians contains:
 * 1:1,2. The greeting, from Paul to the church of Ephesus.
 * 1:3–2:10. A general account of the blessings that the gospel reveals. This includes the source of these blessings, the means by which they are attained, the reason why they are given, and their final result. The whole of the section Ephesians 1:3–23 consists in the original Greek of just two lengthy and complex sentences. It ends with a fervent prayer for the further spiritual enrichment of the Ephesians.
 * Ephesians 2:11–3:21 A description of the change in the spiritual position of Gentiles as a result of the work of Christ. It ends with an account of how Paul was selected and qualified to be an apostle to the Gentiles, in the hope that this will keep them from being dispirited and lead him to pray for them.
 * Ephesians 4:1–16. A chapter on unity in the midst of the diversity of gifts among believers.
 * Ephesians 4:17–6:9. Instructions about ordinary life and different relationships.
 * Ephesians 6:10–24. The imagery of spiritual warfare (including the metaphor of the Armor of God), the mission of Tychicus, and valedictory blessings.

Founding of the church at Ephesus
Paul's first and hurried visit for the space of three months to Ephesus is recorded in Acts 18:19–21. The work he began on this occasion was carried forward by Apollos and Aquila and Priscilla. On his second visit early in the following year, he remained at Ephesus "three years", for he found it was the key to the western provinces of Asia Minor. Here "a great door and effectual" was opened to him, and the church was established and strengthened by his diligent labours there. From Ephesus the gospel spread abroad "almost throughout all Asia." The word "mightily grew and prevailed" despite all the opposition and persecution he encountered.

On his last journey to Jerusalem, the apostle landed at Miletus and, summoning together the elders of the church from Ephesus, delivered to them a farewell charge, expecting to see them no more.

The following parallels between this epistle and the Milesian charge may be traced:

 * 1) Acts 20:19 = Ephesians 4:2. The phrase "lowliness of mind".
 * 2) Acts 20:27 = Ephesians 1:11. The word "counsel", denoting the divine plan.
 * 3) Acts 20:32 = Ephesians 3:20. The divine ability.
 * 4) Acts 20:32 = Ephesians 2:20. The building upon the foundation.
 * 5) Acts 20:32 = Ephesians 1:14,18 "The inheritance of the saints."

Purpose
The purpose of the epistle, and to whom it was written, are matters of much speculation. It was regarded by C.H. Dodd as the "crown of Paulinism." In general, it is born out of its particular socio-historical context and the situational context of both the author and the audience. Originating in the circumstance of a multicultural church (primarily Jewish and Hellenistic), the author addressed issues appropriate to the diverse religious and cultural backgrounds present in the community.

The author exhorts the church repeatedly to embrace a specific view of salvation, which he then explicates.

Frank Charles Thompson argues that the main theme of Ephesians is in response to the newly converted Jews who often separated themselves from their Gentile brethren. The unity of the church, especially between Jew and Gentile believers, is the keynote of the book.

Interpretations
Ephesians is notable for its domestic code treatment in Ephesians 5:22–6:9, covering husband-wife, parent-child, and master-slave relationships. In Ephesians 5:22, wives are urged to submit to their husbands, and husbands to love their wives "as Christ loved the Church." Christian Egalitarian theologians, such as Katharine Bushnell and Jessie Penn-Lewis, interpret these commands in the context of the preceding verse, for all Christians to "submit to one another." Thus, it is two-way, mutual submission of both husbands to wives and wives to husbands. But according to Peter O'Brien, Professor Emeritus at Moore Theological College, this would be the only instance of this meaning of submission in the whole New Testament, indeed in any extant comparable Greek texts; by O'Brien's account, the word simply does not connote mutuality. Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel Wallace understands it to be an extension of Ephesians 5:15-21 on being filled by the Holy Spirit.

In the period leading up to the American Civil War (1861–65), Ephesians 6:5 on master-slave relationships was one of the Bible verses used by Confederate slaveholders in support of a slaveholding position.

title: Epistle to the Ephesians


text:
Electric bus (disambiguation)

Electric bus is a bus powered by electric energy. "Electric bus" can also refer to:

 * Bus (computing), used for connecting components of a computer or communication between computers
 * Busbars, thick conductors used in electrical substations
 * In power engineering, a "bus" is any graph node of the single-line diagram at which voltage, current, power flow, or other quantities are to be evaluated. This may correspond to the physical busbars in substation.
 * A ground bus or earth bus is a conductor used as a zero voltage reference in a system, often connected to ground or earth.
 * In professional audio, bus refers to a place in the audio signal chain where one can hear a mix of different audio signals—usually at the output of a mixing console.

title: Electric bus (disambiguation)


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Exploit (computer security)

An exploit (from the English verb to exploit, meaning "to use something to one’s own advantage") is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or a sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized). Such behavior frequently includes gaining control of a computer system, allowing privilege escalation, or a denial-of-service (DoS or related DDoS) attack. In lay terms, some exploit is akin to a 'hack'.

Classification
There are several methods of classifying exploits. The most common is by how the exploit communicates to the vulnerable software.

A remote exploit works over a network and exploits the security vulnerability without any prior access to the vulnerable system.

A local exploit requires prior access to the vulnerable system and usually increases the privileges of the person running the exploit past those granted by the system administrator. Exploits against client applications also exist, usually consisting of modified servers that send an exploit if accessed with a client application. A common form of exploits against client applications are browser exploits.

Exploits against client applications may also require some interaction with the user and thus may be used in combination with the social engineering method. Another classification is by the action against the vulnerable system; unauthorized data access, arbitrary code execution, and denial of service are examples.

Many exploits are designed to provide superuser-level access to a computer system. However, it is also possible to use several exploits, first to gain low-level access, then to escalate privileges repeatedly until one reaches the highest administrative level (often called "root"). In this case the attacker is chaining several exploits together to perform one attack, this is known as an exploit chain.

After an exploit is made known to the authors of the affected software, the vulnerability is often fixed through a patch and the exploit becomes unusable. That is the reason why some black hat hackers as well as military or intelligence agencies' hackers do not publish their exploits but keep them private.

Exploits unknown to everyone except the people that found and developed them are referred to as zero day or “0day” exploits.

Exploits are used by hackers to bypass security controls and manipulate system vulnerabilities. Researchers have estimated that this costs over $450 billion every year from the global economy. In response, organizations are using cyber threat intelligence to protect their vulnerabilities.

Types
Exploitations are commonly categorized and named by the type of vulnerability they exploit (see vulnerabilities for a list), whether they are local/remote and the result of running the exploit (e.g. EoP, DoS, spoofing). One scheme that offers zero day exploits is exploit as a service.

Zero-click
A zero-click attack is an exploit that requires no user interaction to operate – that is to say, no key-presses or mouse clicks. FORCEDENTRY, discovered in 2021, is an example of a zero-click attack.

These exploits are commonly the most sought after exploits (specifically on the underground exploit market) because the target typically has no way of knowing they have been compromised at the time of exploitation.

In 2022, NSO Group was reportedly selling zero-click exploits to governments for breaking into individuals' phones.

Pivoting
Pivoting is a method used by hackers and penetration testers to expand the attack surface of a target organization. A compromised system to attack other systems on the same network that are not directly reachable from the Internet due to restrictions such as firewall. There tend to be more machines reachable from inside a network as compared to Internet facing hosts. For example, if an attacker compromises a web server on a corporate network, the attacker can then use the compromised web server to attack any reachable system on the network. These types of attacks are often called multi-layered attacks. Pivoting is also known as island hopping.

Pivoting can further be distinguished into proxy pivoting and VPN pivoting:

 * Proxy pivoting is the practice of channeling traffic through a compromised target using a proxy payload on the machine and launching attacks from the computer. This type of pivoting is restricted to certain TCP and UDP ports that are supported by the proxy.

 * VPN pivoting enables the attacker to create an encrypted layer to tunnel into the compromised machine to route any network traffic through that target machine, for example, to run a vulnerability scan on the internal network through the compromised machine, effectively giving the attacker full network access as if they were behind the firewall.

Typically, the proxy or VPN applications enabling pivoting are executed on the target computer as the payload of an exploit.

Pivoting is usually done by infiltrating a part of a network infrastructure (as an example, a vulnerable printer or thermostat) and using a scanner to find other devices connected to attack them. By attacking a vulnerable piece of networking, an attacker could infect most or all of a network and gain complete control.

title: Exploit (computer security)


text:
Erg

The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol erg. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from ergon (ἔργον), a Greek word meaning 'work' or 'task'.

An erg is the amount of work done by a force of one dyne exerted for a distance of one centimetre. In the CGS base units, it is equal to one gram centimetre-squared per second-squared (g⋅cm2/s2). It is thus equal to 10−7 joules or 100 nanojoules (nJ) in SI units.

 * 1 erg = $J$ = $J$
 * 1 erg = $100 nJ$ = $sn⋅m$ = $100 psn⋅m$
 * 1 erg = $100 picosthène-metres$ = $624.15 GeV$
 * 1 erg = $6.242 eV$ = $1 dyn⋅cm$
 * 1 erg = 1.000000 erg

History
In 1864, Rudolf Clausius proposed the Greek word ἐργον (ergon) for the unit of energy, work and heat. In 1873, a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, including British physicists James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson recommended the general adoption of the centimetre, the gramme, and the second as fundamental units (C.G.S. System of Units). To distinguish derived units, they recommended using the prefix "C.G.S. unit of ..." and requested that the word erg or ergon be strictly limited to refer to the C.G.S. unit of energy.

In 1922, chemist William Draper Harkins proposed the name micri-erg as a convenient unit to measure the surface energy of molecules in surface chemistry. It would equate to 10−14 erg,    the equivalent to 10−21 joule.

The erg is not a part of the International System of Units (SI), which has been recommended since 1 January 1978 when the European Economic Community ratified a directive of 1971 that implemented SI as agreed by the General Conference of Weights and Measures. It is the unit of energy in Gaussian units, which are widely used in astrophysics, applications involving microscopic problems and relativistic electrodynamics, and sometimes in mechanics.

title: Erg