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
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