MEP Svenja Hahn from Germany’s FDP was elected president of Europe’s largest liberal party family, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) party, on Sunday, as leading figures warned about their declining importance.
Delegates chose Hahn to replace the outgoing co-presidents, Irish senator Timmy Dooley (FF/Renew) and Bulgarian MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (DPS/Renew), at ALDE’s first conference since June’s EU election in Estoril, Portugal.
“I’m so ready to take on the work to modernise and restructure our party because (…) I want us all to come back stronger in the European elections in 2029,” Hahn said in her candidate speech on Saturday (5 October).
In her new position, she will coordinate the activities of national member parties in the EU institutions.
ALDE’s members, including Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP) and the Estonian Reform Party (RE) of the EU’s designated chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, form the backbone of the liberal Renew Europe group in the European Parliament.
After a successful 2019 EU election, however, ALDE lost 25% of its seats in June’s ballot, coming in at 51 lawmakers, which saw Renew Europe drop from third-largest to fifth-largest grouping.
Hahn admitted that many liberal European parties were in crisis, “edged between extremist, populist forces.”
“Liberalism certainly is the answer to the multiple crises of our time, but we can only make a difference if we reach people’s hearts and minds,” she added.
'Heterogeneous' EU liberals plagued by disunity on key issues
Five years after the party of French President Emmanuel Macron took the leadership of the liberals in the EU Parliament, rebranding them as Renew Europe, the group remains far from being a cohesive political platform with divides on key issues threatening the group’s influence.
“We are not sexy”
The dominant analysis of leading figures at the conference was that ALDE members had failed to do so before the election, ceding too much ground to the far right.
“We should not blame the [voters], we should listen to them. If we don’t speak and take seriously their fears, the extreme right might get even stronger in future,” said Xavier Bettel, former Luxembourgian prime minister and current foreign minister, at a panel discussion.
João Cotrim de Figueiredo, leader of ALDE’s Portuguese delegation in the European Parliament, Iniciativa Liberal, noted that liberal communication had to improve.
“[Observers] think we are old, we are tired, they think we are too rational, (…) we are not sexy,” he said at the panel.
Founded in 1976, ALDE unites different liberal strands and is split on issues such as regulation, public spending and green policies, however, which has made cohesive communication difficult in the past.
The fiscally ‘frugal’ and regulatory-sceptical FDP of Hahn, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, and the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) often voted against the majority of Renew in the previous legislative term.
While ALDE members gained in importance within Renew after the election, as the dominant French faction affiliated with President Emmanuel Macron lost seats, they failed to agree on a joint candidate to take the Renew presidency from the French.
Cotrim de Figueiredo’s bid was not supported by the FDP, Slovakia’s Progressive Slovakia (PS) and Dutch D66.
Renew’s rebels strike back: German bloc heralds liberal power reshuffle
For the last five years, the German FDP has been the leader of a rebellious minority within the EU Parliament’s liberal group, but this term the former outliers could exert greater influence over the direction of a fragmented Renew Europe.
[Edited by Alice Taylor-Braçe]
Source: euractiv.com
