One of the members of the ALDE Party's 'Team Europe' for the 2019 European elections, Belgian Guy Verhofstadt, announced on Thursday 2 May in Florence that the future Liberal Group in the European Parliament will no longer be the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).
"I represent a group that will no longer exist after the elections, because we are going to create a new group, a larger group, a centrist pro-European group, with Emmanuel Macron, with his list in France, Renaissance", he explained during the debate of the Spitzenkandidaten of the European political parties (see EUROPE 12246/2).
French President Emmanuel Macron's party, La République en marche, has repeatedly stated that it wants a larger group than the ALDE group in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12134/8).
This new group will also help to resolve the confusion between the European Party of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and the ALDE group in the European Parliament, which includes both ALDE party members and European Democrat Party (EDP) members.
(Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)