| (May 23, 2005/ Rome) The Italian La Margherita-Freedom and Democracy Party, will be doing their Asian tour from June 6 to 10, 2005 covering the cities of Delhi, Bangkok, Manila, and Tokyo.The delegation is headed by Gianni Vernetti, MP, head of the International Relations Department of the said party. In a letter to Council of Asian Liberals & Democrats, Mr. Vernetti expressed the desire of La Margherita and the European Democratic Party to establish contacts to Asian political parties.
CALD will be assisting the La Margherita in their Asian mission, particularly in arranging meetings with CALD member parties and other organizations—the Democrat Party of Thailand and the National Council of the Union of Burma in Bangkok; and, the Liberal Party, the CALD Secretariat and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Manila.
CALD Executive Director John Coronel, Liberal Party Director General Concepcion Asis and Democrat Party’s Sirinun Senakant
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| Vernetti including audiences with Senate President Franklin Drilon, the 3rd highest Philippine official and president of the Liberal Party, Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva, MP, leader of the Democrat Party of Thailand, and Philippine Deputy Speaker Benigno Aquino III. Mr. Coronel will also host a luncheon reception in Manila in honor of the visiting delegation.The European Democratic Party (EDP) was established in July 2004 and celebrated its first congress in December 2004 in Brussels, when Francois Bayrou of the French UDF and Francesco Rutelli of the Italian la Margherita have been elected as co-presidents.The EDP is officially recognized by the EU as a “European Political Party” and its members include democratic and reformist parties from several countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Belgium, Estonia.
In the European Parliament the EDP, together with the Liberals, formed in 2004 the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the third biggest group at the European Parliament. Its parties share a reformist and pro-European political platform, and wish to go beyond the traditional liberal and social-democratic ideas and policies, promoting a third way approach that is similar to the Clinton and Blair traditions.
In fact, one of the first steps of the European Democratic Party, together with European consolidation and enlargement, has been to establish a link with the US Democrats. After a first political meeting inRome in February 2005, the party established the Alliance of American and European Democrats, with offices in Brussels and Washington.
The EDP and La Margherita would like to focus their interest on Asia, building on contacts and links with democratic, progressive and reformist political parties such as those represented in the CALD.
One of their goals is to organize in Rome between October and November 2005 an International meeting on “Europe/Asia Relations- Dialogue between Asian and European Democrats” involving different Asian and European democratic political parties. |
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