EPTALDE counts 95 MEPs. It is a coalition of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and European Democratic Party (EDP). ALDE is with 76 MEPs by far the largest part of the group. They are based on liberal parties in Europe and liberal democrats in UK and FDP in Germany contribute most, while a disproportionally large portion of other northern countries (baltic,scandinavia and benelux primarily), Romanian/Bulgarian MEPs are members. EDP with 11 members left are very strongly for increased cooperation in EU and 5 of their currnet members are from Mouvement Démocrate in France.
They act very much as a centralist party, cooperating with both sides of the parliament.
On civil liberties ALDE alligns well with the Greens/ELA and NGL-LEU. At the same time they are asking for a more cohesive legislation from the commission including easier movement of goods (improvement and/or enforcement of Schengen) and deepening of the legal cooperation in EU with a suggestion of a common european prosecutors office.
On the economic area, ALDE acts centralist, asking for more green growth arguing that green technology is a growth area and an investment in the future. Another economic policy is their strong liking towards the EURO. They want to extend the Euro-area as fast as possible to “provide stability” in the newer EU memberstates. On the crisis ALDE wants to await a report on what went wrong before implementing specific measures. However, there is an absolute need for a common european legislation and enforcement instead of leaving it to the member states.
On foreign policy they are very unspecific, arguing for a strenghtening of EEAS and ESDP to take care of these areas.
As has been made clear from these policies, they are very EU-expansive in general!
Stats:
Leader: Guy Verhofstadt (VLD, Belgium)
MEPs: 85
Average participation (voting): 83.9 %
Vote cohesion (since last election): 88,8 %
Most cohesion on (committee topic) : Regional Development (96,4 %)
Worst cohesion on (committee topic): Internal Regulations of the EP (73,4 %)
Least towing of party line: Lithuanian Darbo Partija
Sources
http://www.alde.eu/
http://www.votewatch.eu/#tabs-1
