Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party

Structure

Bureau

The day-to-day management of the ALDE Party is handled by the Bureau, the members of which are:

Presidents

• 1978–1981: Luxembourg Gaston Thorn
• 1981–1985: Belgium Willy De Clercq
• 1985–1990: Luxembourg Colette Flesch
• 1990–1995: Belgium Willy De Clercq
• 1995–2000: Denmark Uffe Ellemann-Jensen
• 2000–2005: Germany Werner Hoyer
• 2005–2011: Belgium Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck
• 2011–2015: United Kingdom Graham Watson
• 2015–2021: Netherlands Hans van Baalen
• 2021–2024: Ireland Timmy Dooley Bulgaria Ilhan Kyuchyuk co-presidents
• 2024–present: Germany Svenja Hahn

History of pan-European liberalism

Main article: History of pan-European liberalism

Pan-European liberalism has a long history dating back to the foundation of Liberal International in April 1947. On 26 March 1976, the Federation of Liberal and Democrat Parties in Europe was established in Stuttgart. The founding parties of the federation were the Free Democratic Party of Germany, Radical Party of France, Venstre of Denmark, Italian Liberal Party, Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and Democratic Party of Luxembourg. Observer members joining later in 1976 were the Danish Social Liberal Party, French Radical Party of the Left and Independent Republicans, British Liberal Party, and Italian Republican Party. In 1977, the federation was renamed European Liberals and Democrats, in 1986, European Liberal Democrats and Reformists.

It evolved into the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR Party) in 2004, when it was founded as an official European party under that name and incorporated under Belgian law at an extraordinary Congress in Brussels, held on 30 April 2004 the day before the enlargement of the European Union. At the same time the matching group in the European Parliament, the European Liberal Democrats and Reformists Group allied with the members of the newly elected European Democratic Party, forming the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) with a matching ALDE Group in the European Parliament.

On 10 November 2012, the ELDR Party adopted the name of the alliance between the two parties, to match the parliamentary group and the alliance.

On 12 June 2019, the ALDE group was succeeded by a new enlarged group, Renew Europe, which primarily consists of ALDE and EDP member parties and France's La République En Marche! (LREM).

Funding

As a registered European political party, ALDE is entitled to European public funding, which it has received continuously since 2004.

Below is the evolution of European public funding received by ALDE. |arg:where=party |arg:eq=ALDE |arg:cols=year,maximum_allocated,amount_received

In line with the Regulation on European political parties and European political foundations, ALDE also raises private funds to co-finance its activities. As of 2025, European parties must raise at least 10% of their reimbursable expenditure from private sources, while the rest can be covered using European public funding.

Below is the evolution of contributions and donations received by the ALDE. |arg:cols=year,ALDE |arg:cols=year,ALDE

European Commissioners

Members from ALDE Party political family contribute five out of the 27 members of the European Commission:

Elected representatives of member parties

European institutions

European Council

In third countries

Through its associate and observer parties ALDE has two heads of state or government in non-EU countries:

National parliaments of European Union member states

National parliaments outside the European Union

Membership

]] The ALDE party has 73 member parties from EU and non-EU countries.

Only delegates from full members of the ALDE Party and its youth wing LYMEC, together with the delegates of the ALDE Party Supporters and ALDE Party Bureau members, are permitted to vote at the ALDE Congress and Council. Affiliated member parties have non-voting delegates.

Full members

Affiliated members

• ARM Armenian National Congress
• ARM Bright Armenia
• AZE Musavat
• BLR Party of Freedom and Progress
• HRV Croatian People's Party – Liberal Democrats
• HRV Civic Liberal Alliance
• HRV Croatian Social Liberal Party
• GEO Republican Party of Georgia
• GEO Free Democrats
• GEO Droa
• MDA Liberal Party
• RUS People's Freedom Party
• UKR Civil Position
• UKR Power of the People
• UK Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
• GIB Liberal Party of Gibraltar

Former members

• BUL National Movement for Stability and Progress
• BUL Movement for Rights and Freedoms (2001–2024)
• CZE ANO 2011 (2014–2024)
• CRO Liberal Party
• CRO Party of Liberal Democrats
• EST Estonian Centre Party (2004–2024)
• GRE Drassi (2013–2014)
• HUN Alliance of Free Democrats (2004–2009)
• ISL Bright Future
• IRE Progressive Democrats
• ITA Italian Liberal Party (1976–1994)
• ITA Italian Republican Party (1976–2010)
• ITA Italy of Values
• LTU Labour Party (2004–2021)
• LTU Liberal and Centre Union
• MLT Democratic Party (2017–2020)
• POR Social Democratic Party (until 1996)
• POR Earth Party
• ROM National Liberal Party (2007–2014)
• ROM Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (2015–2019)
• RUS Yabloko (2004–2025)
• SLO Party of Alenka Bratušek (2014–2022)
• SLO List of Marjan Šarec (2018–2022)
• SLO Modern Centre Party (2014–2021)
• SLO Zares
• SLO Liberal Democracy of Slovenia
• ESP Catalan European Democratic Party (until 2018)

Individual members

ALDE also includes a number of individual members. For many years, ALDE had the largest number of individual members of all European parties; however, this membership was discontinued with only one individual member remaining as of 2024. As most other European parties, it has not sought to develop mass individual membership.

Below is the evolution of individual membership of ALDE since 2019. |arg:cols=year,ALDE

Election results

European Parliament

Notes

References

References

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