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 parties from across Europe, mainly active in the European Union. The ALDE Party is affiliated with 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 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).

On 10 November 2012, the party chose its current name 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 70 MEPs and five members of the European Commission. Of the 27 EU member states, there are four with ALDE-affiliated Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte (VVD) in the Netherlands, Xavier Bettel (DP) in Luxembourg, Kaja Kallas (Estonian Reform Party) in Estonia and Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) in Belgium. ALDE member parties are also in governments in seven other EU member states: Croatia, Finland, Ireland, 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 the 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 Dan-Aria Sucuri.

In 2011, the ALDE Party became the first pan-European party to create the status of individual membership. Since then, between 1000 and close to 3000 members (the numbers fluctuate annually) have maintained direct membership in the ALDE Party from several EU countries. Over 40 coordinators mobilise liberal ideas, initiatives and expertise across the continent under the leadership of the Steering Committee, which was first chaired by Julie Cantalou. The ALDE Party took a step further in the direction of becoming a truly pan-European party when granting voting rights to individual members’ delegates at the Party Congress.