The ALDE Party is gradually getting organised for the European elections in May 2019.
While the candidates for the Spitzenkandidat position in the EPP and PES parties are already known, the liberals have not yet opened their application procedure.
It is expected that this will be launched at the end of the party congress in Madrid on 10 November, the same day that the party adopts its manifesto. The EPP will meanwhile have elected its candidate for the post of president of the Commission on 8 November. The ALDE candidates will have until 1 February to declare themselves, and it is expected that the one (or several) Spitzenkandidat(en), or head-of-list candidate(s), will be appointed at the end of February.
Indeed, the ALDE Party could decide on a Spitzen-mannschaft, a team.
Until now, no figure has officially been declared as a candidate. The name of the current commissioner for competition, Margarethe Vestager, has certainly been mentioned but, in Vestager's own words, the Danish government "does not seem very enthusiastic at the idea of giving (her) a second mandate in Brussels".
In an interview in early September, the leader of the ALDE Group at the European Parliament, Belgian national Guy Verhofstadt, challenged the Spitzenkandidat principle. Without creating a transnational list, the process does not have any democratic justification, Verhofstadt said – who was himself the liberal Spitzenkandidat in the 2014 European elections (see EUROPE 12092).
No rallying of LREM yet
The French party La République en marche! (LREM) could unite with the ALDE Party to form a group at the European Parliament post-2019, but nothing is yet definite.
"There is a dialogue zone but no formal working group", contrary to what some media sources have announced, an ALDE Party source told EUROPE. The executive officer of LREM, Christophe Castaner, has nevertheless been invited to participate in the ALDE congress in Madrid.
The same source added that there were "many indications to say that LREM could participate with several others in an enlarged group".
The name of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament could thus change. The European Democratic Party – which currently has nine MEPs – might also become part of the ALDE Group at the European Parliament again. Its manifesto will be adopted at the end of 2018 or in early 2019.
This same ALDE source seemed quite optimistic as to the size of the future group containing the ALDE Party at the European Parliament. The source said that the group will grow bigger, even if LREM does not join it, and that it could become the third political force at the European Parliament.
It was rather a logical optimism. On 27 September, Guy Verhofstadt, Christophe Castaner, Malta's Prime Minister and leader of its labour party Joseph Muscat, former European commissioner and former prime minister of Romania, as well as leader of country's 'Romania together' movement Dacian Cioloș, former prime minister of Italy Matteo Renzi and the political leader of the Dutch Democrats 66 group Alexander Pechtold co-signed a newspaper opinion article "to reinvent Europe".
It remains to be seen whether the respective parties decide to join in solidarity within the same group at the European Parliament after 2019 (see EUROPE 12105).
Conquest of the European Council
Beyond the European Parliament, ALDE seems to have its eye on the post of president of the European Council, believing it has sufficient political weight to be able to aspire to this post.
Seven heads of state and government are currently affiliated to the party: the prime ministers of Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
According to one source, the new prime minister of Slovenia might also formally join the party. Eight heads of state or government – nine if France's President Emmanuel Macron is added, whose ideas are close to the party – out of the full 28 (soon 27), are members of ALDE.
There are persistent rumours of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's interest in the post of president of the European Council, although he himself announced in early October that he was not a candidate to succeed Donald Tusk at the end of 2019. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)