President Olivier Chastel Political position Centre-right | Founded 21 March 2002 | |
Preceded by Liberal Reformist Party
Citizens' Movement for Change Headquarters National Secretariat
Avenue de la Toison D'Or 84-86
1060
Brussels, Belgium Ideology Liberalism
Conservative liberalism | ||
The Reformist Movement (French: Mouvement Réformateur, MR) is a liberal and conservative-liberal French-speaking political party in Belgium. The party is in coalition as part of the Michel Government since October 2014, providing the current Prime Minister of Belgium Charles Michel. After the 2007 general election the MR was the largest Francophone political formation in Belgium, a position that was regained by the Socialist Party in the 2010 general election.
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The MR is an alliance between three French-speaking and one German-speaking liberal parties. The Liberal Reformist Party (PRL) and the Francophone Democratic Federalists (FDF) started the alliance in 1993, and were joined in 1998 by the Citizens' Movement for Change (MCC). The alliance was then known as the PRL-FDF-MCC federation. The alliance became the MR during a congress in 2002, where the German-speaking liberal party, the Party for Freedom and Progress joined as well. The label PRL is no longer used, and the three other parties still use their own names. The MR is member of Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party. However, on 25 September 2011, the FDF decided to leave the coalition. They did not agree with the manner in which president Charles Michel defended the rights of the French-speaking people in the agreement concerning the splitting of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district, during the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation.
Though the MR's original ideology emphasised classical liberalism and free market economics, it has of late joined the general trend of Belgian liberals to accept elements of social liberalism under the influence of Dirk Verhofstadt, whose brother Guy Verhofstadt led the MR's Flemish counterpart, the Open VLD.
2007 general election
In the 10 June 2007 general elections, MR won 23 out of 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 6 out of 40 seats in the Senate.
2010 general election
In the 13 June 2010 general elections, MR won 18 out of 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives and 4 out of 40 seats in the Senate. After the long government formation process, on 6 December 2011 the Di Rupo I Government was formed with MR as one of the six constituent parties.
2014 election
In the federal, regional and European elections on May 25, 2014, MR won 20 seats in the Chamber of Representatives, 25 seats in the Walloon Parliament, 18 seats in the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region, and 3 out of 21 seats in the European Parliament.