London, 24 September 2013

Commenting on the result of the federal elections in Germany, LI President Hans van Baalen MEP has praised the record of German liberals in government and predicted their strong return to the Bundestag.  

LI President and leader of the VVD group in the European Parliament, Hans van Baalen MEP, deplores the fact that FDP will not return , after 60 years, to the new Bundestag elected Sunday.

Van Baalen said:

The FDP and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation have always played a vital role in the international and European liberal family. The strong support of FDP to liberal parties around the globe and Liberal International and its regional organisations have contributed much to the advancement of liberalism in the world. Otto Count Lambsdorff, Hans Dietrich Genscher, Walter Scheel and Wolfgang Gerhardt and many other FDP leaders are part of LI’s legacy. However, I am confident that FDP will not vanish. It will under new leadership come out of the current existential crisis stronger and more united. FDP will be elected to the European Parliament in May 2014, will reconquer the Federal Republic of Germany from the stronghold NRW and will remain to play its part in Liberal International and in the ALDE Party and ALDE Group.

The LI President continued:

Over the past decades the German liberals have set up an example of the true meaning of international solidarity among the liberals. Now they can count on the liberals across the world extending their hand of support and in the same spirit of solidarity. Liberal International will certainly champion those efforts.

Their role in the last government saw them deliver an ambitious manifesto, dedicated to strengthening the German economy and boosting private enterprise – in doing so the Free Democrats were central to keeping unemployment down despite wider European recession. In true liberal fashion, the FDP also fought to secure individual freedom and liberties for all Germans.

ENDS