Tag Archives: guy verhofstadt

Mark Valladares

LibLink: Guy Verhofstadt, still taking it to UKIP…

By Mark Valladares | Fri 5th April 2013 - 4:21 pm

Guy VerhofstadtIn November, we reported on Guy Verhofstadt’s attack on Nigel Farage in the European Parliament. In yesterday’s Independent, the Leader of the Alliance of Liberals & Democrats in the European Parliament, gave his views on European migration policy and its effect on the United Kingdom. In a piece notable for its calmness of tone, he points out some of the flipside of the debate, pointing out the benefits of freedom of movement within the European Union, and nailing some of the misleading claims of UKIP leaders and activists.

Given …

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Posted in LibLink and News | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Mark Valladares

This week in Europe: 25-28 February

By Mark Valladares | Fri 1st March 2013 - 4:11 pm

European Liberals and Democrats to oppose the 2014-20 budget proposal but accept the global amount

In a statement on Wednesday, the ALDE Group in the European Parliament adopted its position ahead of negotiations on the new EU budget. Guy Verhofstadt, its Group Leader, called for a transfer of spending from farming and cohesion policy towards research, innovation, infrastructure and competitiveness, and condemned the EU’s growing deficit;

Nor can we countenance the creation of excessive deficits, building up outstanding commitments year on year to a potential debt of €300 billion by 2020, if all commitments are taken up.

He also called for a binding …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , and | Leave a comment
NewsHound

LibLink: Guy Verhofstadt thinks that David Cameron would be wrong to leave the EU…

By NewsHound | Fri 18th January 2013 - 3:51 pm

In a piece for the Huffington Post entitled “The UK Is Sleepwalking to the EU Exit. It Is Time to Wake Up”, Guy Verhofstadt, Leader of the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats in Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament, gives a glimpse of the difficulties facing David Cameron in seeking to renegotiate the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union. He warns;

Cameron will not succeed if he attempts to hold his European partners to ransom, exchanging acquiescence to EU treaty change over the eurozone for a unilateral repatriation of powers.

and notes, in language that Liberal Democrats would …

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Posted in Europe / International, LibLink and News | Also tagged , and | 18 Comments
Mark Valladares

Guy Verhofstadt probably wasn’t on Nigel Farage’s Christmas card list anyway…

By Mark Valladares | Fri 23rd November 2012 - 2:51 pm

It would be fair to say that Nigel Farage and the leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament, former Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, are unlikely to be close friends. It’s rather less likely after this intervention on Wednesday. Sit back and enjoy…

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Valladares

ELDR Congress – a quick catch up…

By Mark Valladares | Fri 16th November 2012 - 2:21 pm

Last week that unusual event, a keynote speech by a senior Westminster-based Liberal Democrat at an ELDR* event, as Nick Clegg made one of the speeches that opened this year’s Congress.

Europe needs liberals now more than ever. The shared challenges we face are ones that can only be tackled when like-minded people across Europe work together: how to create jobs, particularly for our young people, and bring back prosperity; how to tackle climate change and build the new, green economies we need for our future.

For the rest …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
Nick Thornsby

LibLink: Guy Verhofstadt MEP – Crisis shows why EU must renew its vows

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 11th October 2012 - 9:24 am

Writing in the Financial Times, liberal leader in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt and his colleague and fellow contributor to this new book Daniel Cohn-Bendit (leader of the Greens) set out their vision for the future of the EU after the Eurozone crisis:

The crisis has shown up the key weaknesses in economic governance at EU level where a monetary policy was introduced without a parallel fiscal policy. Unlike other global currencies such as the

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
Nick Thornsby

“We are not planning for a Greek exit” – Verhofstadt

By Nick Thornsby | Thu 17th May 2012 - 2:56 pm

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and current leader of the liberal grouping in the European Parliament, has rejected talk of Greece leaving the Eurozone. Interviewed on the Today programme yesterday he said such speculation was aimed more at influencing public opinion in Greece than it was a prediction of the likely outcome of the current crisis.

Verhofstadt warned that the EU is unprepared for the contagion that would result from a Greek Euro exit, saying:

There is no real firewall around the other economies of Europe, we only have a few fire extinguishers.

You can hear the full interview – including …

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 20 Comments
Chris Davies MEP

Chris Davies MEP writes… Assisted dying is a liberal issue

By Chris Davies MEP | Thu 5th January 2012 - 12:27 pm

It was a Liberal Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt (now the leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament) who ensured that legislation to permit medically assisted dying was brought forward in Belgium a decade ago.  Publication of the report by the independent commission on assisted dying, chaired by Lord Falconer, should be a reminder to our Liberal Democrat leadership of our own very similar party policy on the subject.

Medically assisted dying (the patient self-administering) or euthanasia (the doctor providing direct assistance) are very definitely liberal matters.  They are about respect for individual wishes when the frailty or immobility of the individual …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 15 Comments



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