Europe
The party is fairly pro-European, and holds three seats in the European Parliament, where it sits as a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group. Then-current VLD prime minister Guy Verhofstadt was rejected as a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission in June 2004.
Read more about this topic: Open Vlaamse Liberalen En Democraten
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The city is recruited from the country. In the year 1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town day before yesterday, that is city and court today.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mock’d the smart,
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)