The Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats is a Flemish liberal political party in Belgium. The party has been described as centre-right and has smaller factions within the party that have conservative liberal and social liberal views. The party is a member of the Liberal Group, Renew Europe, and Liberal International.
Regional elections were held in Belgium, to choose representatives in the regional councils of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and the German-speaking Community on 13 June 1999. The regional elections were held on the same day as the European elections and the federal elections.
Flanders is both a cultural community and an economic region within the Belgian state, and has significant autonomy.
This article gives an overview of liberalism in Belgium. Liberalism was a dominant force since the Belgian independence from the Netherlands. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme. For inclusion in this scheme it is not necessary that parties labeled themselves as a liberal party.
Hugo F.V. Coveliers is a retired Belgian politician and lawyer. He was a member of the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives between 1985 and 1995, and from 1993 to 2003. Since 2003, he has been a member of the Belgian Senate. He was a parliamentary chairman for the VLD in both chambers, from 1999 to 2003.
Jean-Marie Louis Dedecker is a Belgian politician.
Vlaams Belang is a Flemish nationalist, Eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the Flemish Region and Brussels Capital Region of Belgium. It is widely considered by the media and political analysts to be on the political far-right, although it self-describes as right-nationalist and has tried to distance itself from the far-right label in recent years.
Flemish political parties operate in the whole Flemish Community, which covers the unilingual Flemish Region and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. In the latter, they compete with French-speaking parties that all also operate in Wallonia. There are very few parties that operate on a national level in Belgium. Flanders generally tends to vote for right-wing, conservative parties, whereas in French-speaking Belgium the socialist party is usually the most successful one.
Eduard Marie August "Ward" Beysen was a Belgian politician and well-known freemason. He held a degree in Dutch and history teaching, obtained in 1963, in Lier and started his political career in the seventies in the Flemish liberal party, the Party for Freedom and Progress (PVV), which was renamed Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD) in 1992. Ward Beysen – suffering a depression – died by drowning himself in the lake of Fort 6 in the south of Antwerp.
Gerolf Emma Jozef Annemans is a Belgian lawyer, journalist and politician of the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang (VB) and formerly of its predecessor, the Vlaams Blok. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 2014, and a city councilor in Antwerp since 2000. He served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives from 1987 to 2014, and as a city councilor in Brasschaat from 1994 to 2000. He was the former leader of the VB from 2012 to 2014, and led the Vlaams Blok and VB parliamentary groups from 1991 to 2013.
Nova Civitas was a Flemish think tank based on the principles of classic liberalism in combination with Anglo-Saxon conservatism. Nova Civitas claimed at its founding to be completely independent, although it was recognized and supported by the Flemish Liberal Party (VLD). The Founding Chairman of Nova Civitas, Boudewijn Bouckaert, was a long-time board member of the VLD.
According to their website, the basic principles of Nova Civitas were:
Jean-Pierre Van Rossem was a Belgian stock market guru, economist, econometrician, convicted fraudster, author, philosopher, public figure, politician, and member of the Belgian and Flemish Parliaments.
Hans Van Themsche is a Belgian student who, on 11 May, 2006, shot three people, killing two and severely injuring another, before being shot by police and incapacitated. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2008.
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.
Hugo Schiltz was a Belgian lawyer and politician. He was Belgian MP from 1965 to 1988 and senator from 1992 to 1995. He was also twice minister, from 1981 to 1985 in the first Flemish Government and between 1988 and 1991 in the Belgian federal government Martens VIII. He was further president of the Flemish political party Volksunie between 1975 and 1979.
The 0110 concerts, held on October 1, 2006, in Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi and Ghent, were organised by dEUS frontman Tom Barman, Arno Hintjens and Frederik Sioen to promote tolerance in Belgian society, and "against Vlaams Belang, extremism and gratuitous violence".
Bart Albert Liliane De Wever is a Belgian politician. Since 2004, De Wever has been the leader of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a political party advocating for the transformation of Belgium into a confederal state. He is also a member of the Chamber of Representatives. De Wever presided over his party's victory in the 2010 federal elections when N-VA became the largest party in both Flanders and in Belgium as a whole. He accomplished this again in the subsequent 3 elections, eventually being tasked with forming a new government by King Philippe following the 2024 elections.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 25 May 2014. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected, whereas the Senate was no longer directly elected following the 2011–2012 state reform. These were the first elections held under King Philippe's reign.
Frank Beno Mariano Creyelman is a Belgian politician. Between 1995 and 1999 he served as a member of the Flemish Parliament; between 1999 and 2007 as a member of the senate and between 2007 and 2014 again as member of the Flemish Parliament. He is the brother of fellow Vlaams Belang politician Steven Creyelman. He was expelled from Vlaams Belang in 2023 after an investigation uncovered spying links to China.
