Libertarian, Direct, Democratic
Libertarian, Direct, Democratic ( nl, Libertair, Direct, Democratisch; LDD) is a conservative-liberal, libertarian, right-wing populist Flemish political party in Belgium. The party surprised commentators by winning five seats in the Chamber and one seat in the Senate in 2007, and eight seats in the 2009 Flemish Parliament election. The party remained with only one federal seat after the 2010 election. Previously known as List Dedecker, the party adopted its current name on 22 January 2011. From 2011 to 2014, the LDD's MEP, Derk Jan Eppink, was with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. History The party was founded in January 2007 by Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker as List Dedecker also 'LDD'). Dedecker had left the New Flemish Alliance to found the LDD after the ''Cassandra'' think tank judged in 2006 that there was room for a right-wing conservative-liberal movement in the Flemish Community, expressing the need for a "common sense ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India), with an electorate of 375 million eligible voters in 2009. Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and rose above 50% for the first time since 1994. The voting age is 18 in all EU member states except for Malta and Austria, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17. Al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Flemish Alliance
The New Flemish Alliance ( nl, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, N-VA) is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU). The N-VA is a regionalist and separatist movement that self-identifies with the promotion of civic nationalism.Manifesto of the New Flemish Alliance point 13: "Inclusion for newcomers" (in Dutch). It is considered part of the Flemish Movement; the party strives for the peaceful [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Political Groups Of The European Parliament
The political groups of the European Parliament are the officially recognised political groups consisting of legislators of aligned ideologies in the European Parliament. The European Parliament is unique among supranational assemblies in that its members (MEPs) organise themselves into ideological groups, rather than national cleavages. Each political group is assumed to have a set of core principles, and political groups that cannot demonstrate this may be disbanded (see below). A political group of the EP usually constitutes the formal parliamentary representation of one or more European political parties (Europarty), national political parties and independent politicians. In contrast to European political parties, it is strictly forbidden for political groups to organise or finance the political campaign during the European elections since this is the exclusive responsibility of the parties. Status Working together in Groups benefits European political parties: for ex ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Derk Jan Eppink
Derk Jan Eppink (born 7 November 1958) is a Dutch journalist, politician in the Netherlands, and former cabinet secretary for European Commissioners Bolkestein (1999–2004) and Kallas (2004–2007). In 2009, he was elected to the European Parliament for List Dedecker, and in 2019 for Forum for Democracy. In 2021, he became an MP in the Dutch House of Representatives for the JA21 party. He sits on the European Conservatives and Reformists Group Executive. Eppink was born in Steenderen, Gelderland. He studied Dutch law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (1977–1981) and thereafter European law and International Politics at the University of Amsterdam. In 1984 he moved to Brussels to become trainee at the European Commission. Thereafter he worked for 3 years as assistant to Members of the European Parliament. In 1987, Derk Jan Eppink joined the Dutch newspaper ''NRC Handelsblad'' where he was assigned to the foreign desk. He covered South Africa, worked as cor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Member Of The European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC) first met in 1952, its members were directly appointed by the governments of member states from among those already sitting in their own national parliaments. Since 1979, however, MEPs have been elected by direct universal suffrage. Earlier European organizations that were a precursor to the European Union did not have MEPs. Each Member state of the European Union, member state establishes its own method for electing MEPs – and in some states this has changed over time – but the system chosen must be a form of proportional representation. Some member states elect their MEPs to represent a single national constituency; other states apportion seats to sub-national regions for election. They are sometimes referred to as delega ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2010 Belgian Federal Election
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 13 June 2010, during the midst of the 2007-11 Belgian political crisis. After the fall of the previous Leterme II Government over the withdrawal of Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) from the government the King dissolved the legislature and called new elections. The New Flemish Alliance, led by Bart De Wever, emerged as the plurality party with 27 seats, just one more than the francophone Socialist Party, led by Elio Di Rupo, which was the largest party in the Wallonia region and Brussels. It took a world record 541 days until a government was formed, resulting in a government led by Di Rupo. Yves Leterme served as the caretaker prime minister of the country for the period that it had no official government. Background Fall of the government Following a continued lack of agreement over how to resolve the conflict over the electoral arrondissement of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, the liberal Open VLD left the government ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2009 Belgian Regional Elections
Regional elections were held in Belgium on 7 June 2009 to choose representatives in the regional parliaments of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking Community of Belgium. These elections were held on the same day as the European elections.http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/aeltere/NEWSLETTER-2009-02-18-Belgian-state-reform-fails The Parliament of the French Community is composed of all elected members of the Walloon Parliament (except German-speakers) and the first 19 French-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament. Flemish Parliament All 124 members of the Flemish Parliament were elected. The five Flemish provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders, Antwerp, Flemish Brabant and Limburg) each are a constituency, plus the Brussels-Capital Region where those voting for a Dutch-language party could also vote in the Flemish election. SourceElections 2009 - Flemish Parliament , style="text-align:center;" colspan="11" , ← 2004 • 2009 • 2014 → , - styl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2007 Belgian Federal Election
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 10 June 2007. Voters went to the polls in order to elect new members for the Chamber of Representatives and Senate. Eligible voters were Belgian citizens 18 years and older. There was a legal electoral threshold of 5% for political parties to meet to receive representation, but in several election districts the real electoral threshold is higher than the legal, due to the small number of seats to be elected in the particular district. The 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from 11 electoral districts. The 40 Senate members were elected from the Dutch (25) and Francophone (15) electoral colleges. Of the Flemish parties, the alliance of Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) and the New-Flemish Alliance (N-VA) received an increased share of the vote from the previous election, held in 2003. The CD&V/N-VA list was headed by Yves Leterme, and became the largest political formation in Belgium, thus leading ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Political Parties In Belgium
This article contains a list of political parties in Belgium. Belgium is a federal state with a multi-party political system, with numerous parties who factually have no chance of gaining power alone, and therefore must work with each other to form coalition governments. Almost all Belgian political parties are divided into linguistic groups, either Dutch-speaking parties (see also political parties in Flanders), Francophone parties or Germanophone parties. The Flemish parties operate in Flanders and in the Brussels-Capital Region. The Francophone parties operate in Wallonia and in the Brussels-Capital Region. There are also parties operating in the comparatively small German-speaking community. From the creation of the Belgian state in 1830 and throughout most of the 19th century, two political parties dominated Belgian politics: the Catholic Party (Church-oriented and conservative) and the Liberal Party ( anti-clerical and progressive). In the late 19th century the L ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; it is spoken by Flemings, the dominant ethnic group of the region. Outside of Flanders, it is also spoken to some extent in French Flanders and the Dutch Zeelandic Flanders. Terminology The term ''Flemish'' itself has become ambiguous. Nowadays, it is used in at least five ways, depending on the context. These include: # An indication of Dutch written and spoken in Flanders including the Dutch standard language as well as the non-standardized dialects, including intermediate forms between vernacular dialects and the standard. Some linguists avoid the term ''Flemish'' in this context and prefer the designation ''Belgian-Dutch'' or ''South-Dutch'' # A synonym for the so-called intermediate language in Flanders region, the # An i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |