liberal [doesn't] mean the same thing in Europe as in America

Do European and American liberals advocate different policies, or is it just that the political spectrum in both places is different so the same policies appear at different relative positions?

If I understand correctly, in America liberal is essentially a synonym of ‘(moderate) left-winger’, and hence the antonym of conservative or ‘(moderate) right-winger’ wrt social values, though they often are in favour of greater economic regulation (e.g. the US Democratic Party), whereas in Europe liberals are those who favour greater economic freedom, though they are often conservative wrt social values (e.g. the Italian centre-right). Among mainstream parties, it appears to me to be the case both in Europe and in America that the political spectrum concentrates along a line with positive slope in the Political Compass, i.e. those who value free capitalism also value traditional social values and those who value economic equality also value social freedom (and liberal appear to refer to different directions along that line in Europe and in America), but Europe has (or should I say “used to have”?, I was not aware of the parties you mentioned) fewer extremists east of that line and America has fewer extremists west of it, AFAICT.

(is there a way to get markdown to work with links that end in parentheses?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28Netherlands%29 (28 and 29 being the hex codes for ( and ) respectively).