On 20 June 2022, the ALDE group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe elected Iulian Bulai (USR, Romania) as its new leader.
“In the past weeks I had many valuable discussions with several members of the ALDE group. I thank you all for your openness and your ambition to work together in having the ALDE group as the most relevant and the most innovative PACE group fighting for democracy, rule of law and human rights.” said Mr Bulai in his inaugural speech.
“As we in ALDE-PACE come from all the corners of Europe, we should be proud of our European liberal heritage from both North and South, East and West, from Ukraine to Ireland, from the Baltic sea to the Caucasus, from Norway and Denmark to the Netherlands and Spain. In defending human rights there should be solidarity with those abused regardless of geography and the economic development of a region”.
In his speech, the new ALDE-PACE President specifically addressed the on-going war in Ukraine:
“Dear Ukrainian friends, your commitment to the liberal values should be mirrored by the commitment of this ALDE-PACE group towards the Ukrainian cause: oriented towards European values, towards the natural right of self-determination, towards the right of every individual to live in peace in their own country. Dear friends, we will be by your side. There are no mitigating circumstances for the aggressor. Defending the victims should be the deep belief of this group. We should do that with a strong voice and non-ambiguous decisions.”
