History
In 1971, the Party for Freedom and Progress (PVV-PLP), inheritor to the historical Liberal Party of Belgium, split into a Flemish and a Francophone party, anticipating the political devolution bill of 1980. Initially keeping the French version of the old party name (Parti de la liberté et du progrès), the party relaunched as the Party of Reforms and Freedom of Wallonia (Parti des réformes et de la liberté de Wallonie, PRLW) after taking over the Walloon Rally. In Brussels, the French-speaking Liberals co-operated intensively with the Democratic Front of the Francophones (FDF). In 1979, the Francophone liberals of the capital merged into the PRLW, which took the new name of Liberal Reformist Party (PRL).
The Walloon liberals participated in the federal government from 1973 to 1977 (Leburton governments I-II, Tindemans governments I-III), in 1980 (Martens government III), from 1981 to 1988 (Martens governments V-VII), and from 1999 to 2003 (Verhofstadt I Government).
In 1993, the PRL formed an alliance with the Democratic Front of the Francophones (FDF), a party standing up for the rights of French-speakers in and around Brussels. In 1998, the Citizens' Movement for Change, a split-off from the Christian Social Party, joined the alliance, making it the PRL-FDF-MCC Federation. On a congress in 2002, the German-speaking liberals of the Party for Freedom and Progress also joined and the alliance took the name of Reformist Movement (MR). After this congress, the PRL completely merged in the MR.
Read more about this topic: Liberal Reformist Party
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)