The year 2020 has been a year like no other. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the global agenda, forcing governments to put restrictive measures in place, testing the capacities of our healthcare systems and contributing to the surge of online disinformation.

Despite these challenges, European Liberals have been working hard throughout 2020 to defend human and civil rights, ensure our democracies are protected and the rule of law upheld, make Europe more free, prosperous, and competitive, promote sustainable development and renew Europe. Below we have collected some of the liberal highlights and achievements of this year. 

European liberal family grows in size and significance

The European liberal family has grown during 2020 and thus will be even stronger to start the upcoming year:

• Two new political parties became ALDE members
• More than 300 new individual members joined us this year
• 2 new Liberal Prime Ministers (Belgium and Ireland)
• Nearly 20 new liberal national Ministers (Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania, and North Macedonia) took office
• Liberals are leading in 13 EU capitals and in many other regions and cities all around Europe
  
  

Liberals deliver on key policies

At regional, national and European levels, Liberals have delivered on a range of key policies in 2020, just a few examples are listed below:

• Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, Europe’s Liberals have been taking action to save lives and protect jobs, freedoms and prosperity
• European Liberals adopted two key resolutions in their last Council, a resolution on ALDE Party’s input to the Conference on the Future of Europe and a resolution on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic
• Renew Europe's priorities for the European Green Deal were adopted by European Parliament
• Based on a Renew Europe’s amendment, the European Parliament set a more ambitious EU climate target of 60% CO2 reduction in the Climate Law
• Upon proposal of Renew Europe group, the democratic opposition in Belarus won the Sakharov Prize 2020
• The Latvian Parliament passed a municipal reform proposed by ALDE member Latvijas Attīstībai
• Liberals in Montenegro were key to approve legislation on same-sex civil partnerships
• Nordic liberals joined forces to issue a statement that condemns China’s breaking of the agreement on Hong Kong’s special status
• Renew Europe played a pivotal role in shaping the reform of the EU’s budgetary system, particularly on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, the own resources, and the transition to tackle climate change.
• Renew Europe MEPs played an instrumental role in the negotiations that helped achieve a provisional agreement on a Rule of Law conditionality mechanism and in the negotiations to reach a political agreement of the InvestEU programme
• Under the leadership of Renew Europe, the European Parliament and Council reached an agreement on the first Pan-European digital investment programme ever, the Digital Europe Programme (DEP)

Renew Europe Commissioners adopt flagship initiatives

Throughout the year, European Commissioners have been working on flagship initiatives on a range of topics:

Margrethe Vestager

• New Digital Education Action Plan
• Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act

Vera Jourová

• European Democracy Action Plan
• Union of Equality: LGBTIQ Equality Strategy

Didier Reynders

• Rule of Law Report
• New Consumers Agenda

Kadri Simson

• Energy systems integration strategy
• Hydrogen strategy
• Renovation wave strategy

Thierry Breton

• European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience
• Coronavirus response: coordination of the industry response to shortages in medical supplies and toolbox for interoperability of apps

Janez Lenarčič

• EU coronavirus response: EU coronavirus crisis response mechanism 
• Proposal to strengthen the EU’s crisis management system
  
  

ALDE Party continues the fight for liberal values

In 2020, the ALDE Party has been active through several initiatives and campaigns, some of which are highlighted below:

• We said ‘NO’ to corona dictatorships
• We joined ’16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence’
• We sent an open letter to the President of the Polish Sejm
• We stood with Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová
• We condemned the situation in Belarus
• We issued a statement on the situation in Hong Kong
• We supported Taiwan as a full democracy
• We fought the lies
• We ran for Europe

Don’t want to miss anything we will do in 2021? Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter and ACT Campaigns, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Youtube!

Please note that the listing above is by no means exhaustive: all our member parties have been working hard, winning seats in important elections, starting initiatives at local, regional and national levels and promoting liberal values and priorities across Europe. You can find all our member parties listed on our website and follow them on social media with the help of our dedicated Twitter list.