The ChristianUnion (ChristenUnie) is a relatively young political party in the Netherlands. It combines a conservative point of view on social issues (such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage) with more social democratic ideas on economic and environmental issues. The fifth-largest party in the Netherlands, it has 27,000 members. Look up Politics on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Politics (disambiguation) Democracy History of democracy List of democracy and elections-related topics List of years in politics List of politics by country articles Political corruption Political economy Political movement Political parties of the world Political party Political psychology Political sociology Political... Conservatism or political conservatism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. ... Jump to: navigation, search Euthanasia (Greek: ευθανασία - ευ good, θανατος death) is the practice of killing a person or animal, in a painless or minimally painful way, for merciful reasons, usually to end their suffering. ... Jump to: navigation, search Same-sex marriage is marriage between individuals who are of the same legal or biological sex. ... Social democracy is a political ideology emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from supporters of Marxism who believed that the transition to a socialist society could be achieved through democratic evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

The party was formed in 2001 from the combination of two parties, the Reformatorisch Politieke Federatie and the Gereformeerd Politiek Verbond, which had fought the 1998 elections separately. Together the parties had five seats (GPV 2, RPF 3) out of 150 in the Dutch parliament before the 2002 elections. They were expected to make a light gain, getting to about 7 seats, but the opposite happened, and the ChristenUnie lost one seat to end up with four seats. Jump to: navigation, search 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... The Reformatorisch Politieke Federatie was a minor protestant christian political party in the Netherlands. ... The Gereformeerd Politiek Verbond was a political party in the Netherlands. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1998(MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Jump to: navigation, search 2002(MMII) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The political leader at the time was Kars Veling. After the 2002 elections it has been argued that this had been a bad choice. Veling (it was argued) is someone who was good at keeping the peace internally in a party still somewhat divided amongst the old GPV-RPF line, but not someone who was a useful candidate for interesting the general population. Therefore a new political leader was appointed: André Rouvoet. Jump to: navigation, search André Rouvoet is the political leader of the ChristenUnie, a Dutch political party. ...

In the 2003 elections, the ChristenUnie lost another seat, keeping only three. This was probably because supporters of the party voted CDA, that was in a heavy competition with the PvdA, to make that party the largest. Jump to: navigation, search 2003 (MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Christen-Democratisch Appèl (CDA, Christian Democratic Appeal) is a political party of the Netherlands that was established in 1980. ... For the Belgian political party of the same name, see Partij van de Arbeid (Belgium). ...

The ChristenUnie is a member of the European Christian Political Movement (EPCM). Jump to: navigation, search The European Christian Political Movement (ECPM) is an European political association for reflection and working on Christian-democratic politics in Europe from an explicit Christian Social view. ...

External links

• Introduction (in English)
• Website of the European Christian Political Movement, of which the ChristenUnie is a member