Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party
The Alliance of Liberals in addition to Democrats for Europe Party ALDE Party is the European political party composed of 60 national-level liberal parties from across Europe, mainly active in the European Union. The ALDE Party is affiliated with the Liberal International and a recognised European political party, incorporated as a non-profit association under Belgian law.
It was founded on 26 March 1976 in Stuttgart as a confederation of national political parties under the construct "Federation of Liberal and Democrat Parties in Europe" and renamed "European Liberals and Democrats" ELD in 1977 and "European Liberal Democrats and Reformists" ELDR in 1986. On 30 April 2004, the ELDR was reformed as an official European party, the "European Liberal Democrat and adjust Party" ELDR Party.
On 10 November 2012, the party chose its current work of ALDE Party, taken from its then-European Parliament group, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe ALDE, which had been formed on 20 July 2004 in conjunction with the European Democratic Party EDP. Prior to the 2004 European election the European party had been represented through its own group, the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party Group ELDR Group. In June 2019, the ALDE combine was succeeded by Renew Europe.
As of 2020MEPs and five members of the VVD in the Netherlands, Xavier Bettel DP in Luxembourg, Kaja Kallas Estonian Reform Party in Estonia, Alexander De Croo Open VLD in Belgium and Micheál Martin FF in Ireland. ALDE member parties are also in governments in six other EU unit states: Croatia, Finland, Latvia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Germany. Some other ALDE member parties offer parliamentary support to governments in Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Romania and Sweden. Charles Michel, former Belgian Prime Minister, is current President of the European Council.
ALDE's think tank is the European Liberal Forum, led by Hilde Vautmans, MEP, and gathers 46 member organisations. The youth soar of ALDE is the European Liberal Youth LYMEC, which is predominantly based upon youth and student liberal organisations but contains also a small number of individual members. LYMEC is led by Antoaneta Asenova MRF of Bulgaria, and counts 200,000 members.
In 2011, the ALDE Party became the number one pan-European party to create the status of individual membership. Since then, between 1000 andto 3000 members the numbers fluctuate annually sustains direct membership in the ALDE Party from several EU countries. Over 40 coordinators mobilise liberal ideas, initiatives and expertise across the continent under the control of the Steering Committee, which was number one chaired by Julie Cantalou. The ALDE Party took a step further in the controls of becoming a truly pan-European party when granting voting rights to individual members’ delegates at the Party Congress.