Founded March 1976 | Group leader Guy Verhofstadt MEP | |
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Headquarters Rue d'Idalie 11,1000 Brussels, Belgium | ||
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE Party) is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 60 national-level liberal parties from across Europe. Until 10 November 2012, the party was known as European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR). The ALDE Party is affiliated with the Liberal International.
Contents
- Bureau
- Leaders
- Presidents
- History of pan European liberalism
- European Commissioners
- Outside the EU
- References
Having developed from a loose confederation of national political parties in the 1970s, the ALDE Party is a recognised European political party incorporated as a non-profit association under Belgian law.
As of 2015, ALDE is represented in European Union institutions, with 70 MEPs and 5 members of the European Commission. Of the 28 EU member states, there are seven with ALDE-affiliated Prime Ministers: Xavier Bettel (DP) in Luxembourg, Charles Michel (MR) in Belgium, Taavi Rõivas (RE) in Estonia, Miro Cerar (SMC) in Slovenia, Juha Sipilä (KESK) in Finland, Mark Rutte (VVD) in the Netherlands and Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Venstre) in Denmark. Liberals are also in government in three other EU member states: Croatia, Czech Republic and Lithuania.
Since 20 July 2004, the ALDE Party is politically represented in the European Parliament by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) parliamentary group, formed in conjunction with the European Democratic Party (EDP). The ALDE parliamentary group is led by Guy Verhofstadt, a former Prime Minister of Belgium. Prior to the 2004 European election the party was attached to the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) Group.
ALDE's think tank is the European Liberal Forum. 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 Vedrana Gujic (HNS, Croatia), who was elected for a two-year term as LYMEC President in May 2014, and counts 200,000 members.
Bureau
The day-to-day management of the ALDE Party is handled by the Bureau, the members of which are:
Leaders
Presidents
History of pan-European liberalism
Pan-European liberalism has a long history dating back to the foundation of Liberal International in April 1947. In March 1976, the Federation of Liberal and Democrat Parties in Europe was established. The founding parties of the federation were the Free Democratic Party of Germany, Radical Party of France, Liberal Party 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. The federation gradually evolved into the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) with a matching group in the European Parliament, the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party Group.
At an extraordinary Congress in Brussels held on 30 April 2004 the day before the enlargement of the European Union, the ELDR Party incorporated itself under Belgian law and became a European political party.
The ELDR Party allied with the European Democratic Party in 2004 to form the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), with a matching ALDE Group in the European Parliament. The ELDR Party adopted its current name on 10 November 2012 in order to match the pan-European alliance and parliamentary group.
European Commissioners
ALDE Member Parties contribute 5 out of the 28 members of the European Commission:
Outside the EU
Armenia
Belarus
Georgia
Ukraine