At last week's plenary session, ALDE Group leader Guy Verhofstadt expressed his views on the future of Europe:

"President Xi Jinping crowned himself emperor for life in China. Trump is starting an old fashioned trade war. Putin gets away with murders on European soil. Welcome back to the future, welcome to the new world order. We need a strong Europe to face that."

"Is Europe ready to face current and future challenges? No. We need a fully-fledged European defence community. We need a new governance for the Euro, a euro-budget and the completion of the Single Market. We need a renewed European democracy. And we need it as soon as possible."

"We have a window of two years to achieve reforms. Brexit was not followed by Nexit, Dexit or Frexit, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen in the future; if we are in the incapacity to reform the EU. That is our common responsibility."