In its meeting of Friday 18 June, the ELDR Bureau welcomed the election results of Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) from Slovakia. The party, which is led by the architect of the Slovakian flat-tax system Richard Sulik, obtained 12.14% of the votes and 22 seats in the parliamentary elections of Saturday 12 June, making it the third-largest party in Slovakia's parliament and one of the most successful liberal parties in Central Europe in recent history. Read more ...

Opening today's ELDR Party conference "€URonomics - Bailout or Bust?" about the future of the euro zone, Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck MEP, President of the European Liberal Democrats, talked of the need to have cautious optimism for the future of the euro and noted that Europe and it's economy would be far worse off if the single currency would be allowed to collapse. Furthermore, liberals consider that banks must fulfill their individual responsibilities and should not be exempt from free market principles. In this regard banks and their managers must fulfill their obligation towards their customers, with shareholders the ones footing the bill for any future mismanagement, rather than taxpayers. Read more ...