Mouvement Réformateur
The Reformist Movement is a liberal French-speaking political party in Belgium. The party is in coalition as part of the Michel Government then Wilmès Government since October 2014, providing the current Prime Minister of Belgium Sophie Wilmès. After the 2007 general election the MR was the largest Francophone political formation in Belgium, a position that was regained by the Socialist Party in the 2010 general election.
The MR is an alliance between three French-speaking and one German-speaking liberal parties. The Liberal Reformist Party and the Francophone Democratic Federalists started the alliance in 1993, and were joined in 1998 by the Citizens' Movement for Change. The alliance was then known as the PRL-FDF-MCC federation. The alliance became the MR during a congress in 2002, where the German-speaking liberal party, the Party for Freedom and Progress joined as well. The label PRL is no longer used, and the three other parties still use their own names. The MR is member of Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party. However, on 25 September 2011, the FDF decided to leave the coalition. They did not agree with the manner in which president Charles Michel defended the rights of the French-speaking people in the agreement concerning the splitting of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde district, during the 2010–11 Belgian government formation.
Although the MR's original ideology emphasised classical liberalism and free market economics, it has of late joined the general trend of Belgian liberals to accept elements of social liberalism under the influence of Dirk Verhofstadt, whose brother Guy Verhofstadt led the MR's Flemish counterpart, the Open VLD.Presidents
Federal Parliament
Regional parliaments
Brussels Parliament
Walloon Parliament
European parliament
Notable figures
- Willy Borsus
- Christine Defraigne
- Alain Destexhe
- Daniel Ducarme
- Antoine Duquesne
- Jean Gol
- Sabine Laruelle
- Charles Michel
- Louis Michel
- Didier Reynders
- Jacques Simonet