The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE Party) is a European political party mainly active in the European Union, composed of 52 national-level liberal and liberal-democratic parties from across Europe. Having developed from a loose confederation of national political parties in the 1970s, the ALDE Party is recognised European political party incorporated as a non-profit association under Belgian law. Despite this legal status, the ALDE Party has yet to achieve significant grassroots involvement and retains much of the character of a mere confederation of national political parties. The ALDE Party is affiliated to the Liberal International.
Until 10 November 2012, the party was known as European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR).
As of 2010, ALDE is the third largest European-wide political party represented in European Union institutions, with 75 Members of the European Parliament and 8 members of the European Commission. Of the 27 member states of the European Union, there are two with ALDE-affiliated Prime Ministers: Andrus Ansip in Estonia (Reform Party), and Mark Rutte in the Netherlands (VVD). Furthermore, the leader of the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), Philipp Rösler, serves as Vice-Chancellor of Germany and the leader of the British Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, serves as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Liberals are also in government in eight other EU member states: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.
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. The ALDE parliamentary group is led by Guy Verhofstadt, a former Prime Minister of Belgium. The party was previously attached to the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) Group prior to the 2004 European elections.
The youth wing of ALDE is the European Liberal Youth (LYMEC), which is predominantly based upon youth and student liberal organisations from across Europe but also contains a small number of individual members. LYMEC is led by German politician Alexander Plahr (FDP, Germany), who was elected to a two-year term as LYMEC President in May 2010, and has a collective membership of over 200,000 young liberal Europeans.
Read more about Alliance Of Liberals And Democrats For Europe Party: Leadership, Leaders, History of Pan-European Liberalism, European Commissioners, Member Parties
Famous quotes containing the words alliance of, alliance, liberals, democrats, europe and/or party:
“Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The liberals can understand everything but people who don’t understand them.”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The people of Western Europe are facing this summer a series of tragic dilemmas. Of the hopes that dazzled the last twenty years that some political movement might tend to the betterment of the human lot, little remains above ground but the tattered slogans of the past.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“A party is perpetually corrupted by personality.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)