Independent from what ? The people of Europe ?
Independence and focusing on long term goals are more a state of mind and has nothing to do with how many members the organisation has.
Of cource the FSFE will delegate handling members and such to the local chapters in each country.
I think you, board of the FSFE, must have debated a lot on that before taking such a decision. However, I think from my candid point of view like the organization and membership of APRIL, for instance, match the independence of the association and the protection against hostile take-overs. I have been really shocked at first by the closed membership of the FSFE. It makes it appear like Greenpeace for instance, which I hold from my personnal point of view (please, no debate on that :-) ), as a nearly terrorist organization.