Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE Party) is a 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.[2]

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party
Abbreviation	ALDE Party
President	Hans van Baalen
Secretary-General	Jacob Moroza-Rasmussen
Founded	26 March 1976 (1976-03-26)
Headquarters	Rue d'Idalie 11, Brussels, Belgium
Think tank	European Liberal Forum
Youth wing	European Liberal Youth
Ideology	Liberalism[1] Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre
International affiliation	Liberal International
European Parliament group	ELDR (1976–2004) ALDE (2004–2019) Renew Europe (2019–present)
Colours	Blue, magenta   Yellow (customary)
European Parliament	68 / 705
European Council	6 / 27
European Commission	5 / 27
European Lower Houses	723 / 9,874
European Upper Houses	244 / 2,714
Website
www.aldeparty.eu
Politics of European Union Political parties Elections

It was founded on 26 March 1976 in Stuttgart as a confederation of national political parties under the name "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 Reform Party" (ELDR Party).[3]

On 10 November 2012, the party chose its current name 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 group was succeeded by Renew Europe.

As of 2020, ALDE is represented in European Union institutions, with 65 MEPs and five members of the European Commission. Of the 27 EU member states, there are six with ALDE-affiliated Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte (VVD) in the Netherlands, Xavier Bettel (DP) in Luxembourg, Kaja Kallas (Estonian Reform Party) in Estonia, Andrej Babiš (ANO) in the Czech Republic, Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) in Belgium and Micheál Martin (FF) in Ireland. ALDE member parties are also in governments in four other EU member states: Croatia, Finland, Latvia and Slovenia. 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 wing 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.