The Free Democratic Party (), abbreviated to FDP, is a classical liberal political party in Germany.

The Free Democratic Party ( FDP ), a classical liberal party, is the preferred partner of any CDU government since the CDU and FDP have similar attitudes towards fiscal policy.

It was one of the major parties in Switzerland until its merger with the smaller classical liberal Liberal Party, to form FDP. The Liberals on 1 January 2009.

The CSU currently governs at the federal level with the CDU and the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ).

LYMEC is led by German politician Alexander Plahr ( FDP, Germany ), who was elected to a two-year term as LYMEC President in May 2010, and has a collective membership of over 200, 000 young liberal Europeans.

The FDP was founded in 1948 by members of the former liberal political parties existing in Germany before World War II, the German Democratic Party and the German People's Party.

The FDP was founded on 11 December 1948 through the merger of nine regional liberal parties formed in 1945 from the remnants of the pre-1933 German People's Party ( DVP ) and the German Democratic Party ( DDP ), which had been active in the Weimar Republic.

The FDP espouses the most economic liberal ideas of the parties represented in the German federal parliament.

The FDP describes itself as the pro-European party, although the minority national liberal faction is soft eurosceptic.

The Christian Democrats lost votes compared to 2002, reaching only 35. 2 %, and failed to get a majority for a " black-yellow " government of CDU / CSU and liberal FDP.

The three smaller parties thus have more seats in the German Bundestag than ever before, with the liberal party FDP winning 14. 6 % of votes.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher ( born 21 March 1927 ) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ).

As the candidate of the two Christian Democratic sister parties, the CDU and the CSU, and the liberal FDP, Köhler was elected to his first five-year term by the Federal Assembly on 23 May 2004 and was subsequently inaugurated on 1 July 2004.

Möllemann was initially a member of the CDU from 1962 to 1969, but later on became a member of the liberal FDP in 1970.

The liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) has 2 directly elected representatives.

The five parties having more than 5 percent in recent polls ( minimum to qualify ) are the conservative CDU, the social-democratic SPD, the ecologist Green Party ( GAL ), the left-wing Die Linke and the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ).

Klaus Kinkel ( born 17 December 1936 ) is a German civil servant, lawyer, and politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ).

Wulff was sworn in as Premier on 2003, as the head of a coalition between centre-right Christian Democrats and liberal Free Democrats ( FDP ).

* the forum of the German FDP, which is relatively unmoderated, and illustrates grassroots liberal concerns.

Karl-Hermann Flach ( Königsberg, October 17, 1929 – Frankfurt, August 25, 1973 ) was a German journalist of the Frankfurter Rundschau and a politician of the liberal Free Democrats ( FDP ).

While industrial leaders and both the conservative and economically liberal parliamentary parties such as the CDU, the CSU, and the FDP strongly supported Agenda 2010 as it implemented their long-time demands, there was a strong upheaval in Schröder's own social democratic party.

From 1948 to 1956 Koch was a member of the liberal FDP ( Free Democratic Party ).

The delegates of the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) already formed a united faction with their Christian Social ( CSU ) colleagues from Bavaria, as did the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) together with the Hessian Liberal-Democratic Party and the Democratic People's Party ( DVP ) from Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern.

However, whilst there may be common ground in terms of social progressivism between the three parties, the FDP's economic liberalism and long association at the federal level with the conservative Christian Democratic Union make such a coalition problematic at present and the FDP had specifically ruled out this option for the 2009 election

Even after the 2009 general election, the CDU / CSU emerged as the largest party in Germany, yet both lost votes predominantly to the FDP.

The euphoria following the reunification gave the ruling CDU / CSU – FDP coalition a dramatic advantage in both Western and Eastern Germany throughout the campaign.

In April 2005, the FDP announced its own dissolution and merger with the newly-formed National Alliance Party of Fiji, founded by Ratu Epeli Ganilau, a chief whose father and father-in-law both served as President of Fiji.

This coalition was ruled out, because the FDP considered the Social Democrats and the Greens insufficiently committed to market-oriented economic reform.

The FDP had promised to lower taxes in the electoral campaign but after being part of the coalition they had to admit that this was not possible regarding the economic crisis.

On 17 September 1982, a conflict of economic policy occurred between the governing SPD / FDP coalition partners.

Large sections of the SPD increasingly opposed his security policy while most of the FDP politicians strongly supported that policy ; while representatives of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party opposed reduction of the state expenditures, the FDP began proposing a monetarist economic policy.

As the Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) withdrew from the governing coalition in 1966 due to disagreements over fiscal and economic policy, Erhard was forced to resign.

Most people blamed the centre-right coalition government among the Christian democrats / Christian democrats of Bavaria ( CDU / CSU ), and the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) for the economic difficulties.

The FDP aims for the introduction of a citizen's dividend ( Bürgergeld ), which collects all the tax-financed social welfare and social security funds of the state.

In addition, the FDP endorses to complement the social welfare and health care systems with laws that would require every employed citizen to invest in a private social security account.

Led by Finance Minister Otto Graf Lambsdorff ( 1926 – 2009 ) the FDP adopted the market-oriented " Kiel Theses " in 1977 ; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs.

The Young Liberals often perceive themselves as the policy making stimulus of the FDP and try to propose innovations into the party, sometimes succeeding e. g. in the FDP's decision to challenge the abandonment of the German compulsory military service, to support of the concept of an ecologically-sustanable social market economy, and replacement of existing social welfare benefits with a basic income called Bürgergeld.

Lambsdorff led the FDP to adopt the market-oriented " Kiel Theses " in 1977 ; it rejected the Keynesian emphasis on consumer demand, and proposed to reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs.

In the state of Bavaria, the CSU governs as the major party in a coalition government with the FDP.

In the 1980 elections he ran against the incumbent Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( SPD ), but lost thereafter, as the SPD and the Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) managed to secure an absolute majority together, forming a Social-liberal coalition.

The CSU has led the Bavarian state government since it came into existence in 1946, save from 1950 to 1953 when the Bavaria Party formed a state government in coalition with the German Branches of the SPD and FDP.

The CSU currently governs with the FDP.

He ran for Federal Chancellor in 2002, but his preferred CDU / CSU and FDP coalition lost against the SPD candidate Gerhard Schröder's SPD-Green alliance.

On 28 September 2008, the CSU failed to gain an absolute majority, attaining 43 %, of the vote in the Bavaria state election for the first time since 1966 on a percentage basis and was forced into a coalition with the FDP.

For example, Helmut Kohl's CDU governed for years in coalition with the Free Democratic Party ( FDP ), from 1998 to 2005 Gerhard Schröder's SPD was in power with the Greens and from 2009 Angela Merkel, CDU / CSU was in power with the FDP.

This was the situation in Germany in 2005 when Angela Merkel became Chancellor: in early elections, the CDU / CSU did not garner enough votes to form a majority coalition with the FDP ; similarly the SPD and Greens did not have enough votes to continue on with their formerly ruling coalition.

Furthermore, the leader of the German Free Democratic Party ( FDP ), Philipp Rösler, serves as Vice-Chancellor of Germany and the leader of the British Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, serves as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The FDP is led by Philipp Rösler and currently serves as the junior coalition partner to the Union ( Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union ) in the German federal government.

The FDP, which strongly supports human rights, civil liberties, and internationalism, has shifted from the centre to the centre-right over time.

Following German reunification in 1990, the FDP merged with the Association of Free Democrats, a grouping of liberals from East Germany and the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany.

During the 1990s, the FDP won between 6. 2 and 11 percent of the vote in Bundestag elections.

However, because the CDU did worse than predicted, the FDP and the CDU / CSU alliance were unable to form a coalition government.

At other times, for example after the 2002 federal election, a coalition between the FDP and CDU / CSU was impossible primarily because of the weak results of the FDP.

Therefore, the FDP wasn't able to form a coalition with its preferred partners, the CDU / CSU parties.

One possibility was a partnership between the FDP, the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( SPD ) and the Alliance 90 / The Greens, known as a " traffic light coalition ", named after the colors of the three parties.