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30 years of European Liberal Democrats
March 24, 2006 12:00 AM
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in Liberal Democrat News
By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP in Liberal Democrat News
Sarah at the 30th anniversary of the ELDR in Stuttgart with fellow European liberals: former president of the European Parliament Pat Cox, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu
The spirit of European cooperation was present in abundance at last Friday's celebration in Stuttgart of the 30th anniversary of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party.
The ELDR, founded in that city in 1976 a few years before the first direct elections to the European Parliament, was composed initially of 9 parties in a federation of liberal parties. But it became a fully fledged supranational political party in 1993, and now boasts 47 political parties from 33 countries.
The European Parliamentary group to which Liberal Democrat MEPs belonged bore the same name. But after the 2004 elections, the group expanded to include MEPs from parties in France and Italy which did not belong to ELDR and preferred to call themselves just Democrats.
So that's how the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) group of MEPs was born; sorry about the alphabet soup! The growth of the European Parliamentary party to 90 out of the 732 MEPs has proved a positive strategic move; we punch above our weight as we are often essential to the formation of a majority.
The strength of liberalism is that it is based on principles, not opportunistic pragmatism. The clarion call of the 1976 Stuttgart Declaration - which called for a European Constitution! - was that 'peace, freedom, and prosperity in Europe can best be assured if the European Community progresses toward a European Union.'
None except the craziest Europhobes could dispute that the EU has brought these benefits to its members and is helping secure them for its neighbours like the EU-destined Balkans. When I attended with LDYS members last Sunday a demonstration against the ghastly tyranny in Belarus, what people wanted to know was 'what is the EU going to do?'
The relevance of the ELDR's founding document goes further. In 2006, carbon emissions and worries about gas supply are the subjects of urgent interest, but the Stuttgart Declaration called 30 year ago for a common energy policy.
A consistent theme of the speeches by leaders like former EP president Pat Cox, ELDR president Annemie Neyts MEP, Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Romanian prime minister Colin Popescu-Tariceanu was that our politics is based on hope, not fear.
As protectionism and alienation infect Europe in a worrying echo of the 1920s, our continent is in dire need of both the European Liberal Democrat politics of hope and a strong EU.
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