Lode Claes (born June 1913 - died February 1997) was a Belgian economist author, journalist and politician who was active within the Flemish nationalist movement.
Claes studied political and social sciences and law at the Catholic University of Leuven and began training as a lawyer in Antwerp and Munich during the late 1930s.
After the Second World War, he was accused of being a collaborator due to his work in the civil service during the Nazi occupation and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was released early.
In the Senate, he was mainly concerned with financial and economic issues, in which he had an outspoken neoliberal vision In 1975 he ran for the leadership of the Volksunie but lost to Hugo Schiltz.
A number of well-known Flemish political and academic figures such as Edwin Truyens, Paul Belien, Raoul Bauer, Boudewijn Bouckaert, Chris Van Sumeren, Jaak Gabriels, Gerolf Annemans and Guy Verhofstadt became members of the think-tank and it had ties to the Party for Freedom and Progress and later set the groundwork for forming the Open VLD party, although Claes did not take part in founding the VLD and did not become a member.