Group of The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats For Europe - History

History

The Group can trace its unofficial ancestry back to the Liberal members present at the first meeting of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (the Parliament's predecessor) on 10 September 1952, but the Group was officially founded as the Group of Liberals and Allies on 23 June 1953.

As the Assembly grew into the Parliament, the French Gaullists split from the Group on 21 January 1965 and the Group started the process of changing its name to match the liberal/centrist traditions of the new member states, firstly to the Liberal and Democratic Group in 1976, then to the Liberal and Democratic Reformist Group on 13 December 1985, then to the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on 19 July 1994 to match the European political party of the same name.

In 1999, the Group partnered with European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED) group to form the Grand Coalition for the Fifth Parliament. The customary split of the Presidency of the European Parliament between Groups in the Coalition meant that the Group achieved its first President of the European Parliament on 15 January 2002, when Pat Cox was elected to the post to serve the latter half of the five-year term. The Group lost its Grand Coalition status after the 2004 elections.

On 13 July 2004 the Group approved a recommendation to unite with MEPs from the centrist and social-liberal European political party called the European Democratic Party founded by François Bayrou's Union for French Democracy, the Lithuanian Labour Party and the Italian Margherita.

The Group accordingly became the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) on 20 July 2004, to match the eponymous transnational political alliance, although the two Europarties remained separate outside the European Parliament. The MEP Graham Watson of the British Liberal Democrats became the first chair of ALDE.