* Welcome to the second part of my report of the weekend’s ALDE Party Council. Part 1 can be found here…

Having retired relatively early, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for an early start the next morning. In truth, as I’ve noted before, Council is often a bit of a bureaucracy session, offering Council delegates an opportunity to scrutinise the work of the Bureau. I tend to the view that Council isn’t very good at that, unless something upsets them. After all, most Council delegates are there to debate ideas, not assess the value of adding €50,000 to one budget line or another, and given that the Bureau report resembles a travelogue more than an explanation of activities – you know where they’ve been but not why or what they’ve done – it can all feel a bit perfunctory. And indeed, it was beginning to look as though we were going to finish well ahead for schedule.

And that was the point where the importance of agenda management kicked in. As I mentioned in my preview, the actions of our Dutch sister party, VVD, in forming a formal arrangement with the far right PVV had stirred up strong emotions, especially in countries where the arrangement had been used against sister parties. But there wasn’t an obvious way to discuss the issue, and the Slovaks were not happy. “How can we not act on VVD when we have with, for example, Liberalerna in Sweden?”, was the question, a point emphasised by a Swedish representative. It was an entirely reasonable point, highlighted by the impact it had on Volt Europe’s decision to ally with the Greens, and the apparent lack of appreciation of the importance of consistency.

My sense was that the leadership had rather hoped to fudge the issue, or perhaps they wanted to see how things panned out. However, a possibly unworkable fudge was offered up, involving the appointment of a “council of elders” to review events, which might buy some time to come up with something more effective, presuming that someone is willing to step up to the plate.

That’s where it gets difficult. You see, Bureau members need to get re-elected, and taking difficult decisions risks upsetting parts of the electorate – see Jules Maaten’s point earlier. In the past, the British might have taken it upon themselves to offer a workable solution, but we prefer to tread carefully these days, building bridges rather than risking setting fire to them – a reflection of our status as a non-EU member party.

In addition, we had discussed how the campaign had gone, there was little analysis of the outcome and what it might mean going forward. I would have been hesitant to support such a call so soon after an election, especially whilst power blocs are still setting, although inevitably such a debate will have to take place.

The third question hanging in the air was the upcoming contest to lead the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament. Would ALDE seek to apply their weight of numbers to take the role for one of their own following five years of Macronista leadership? There was a sense that, following the poor results that they had had, triggering a snap election in France, that it was high time that the balance of power shifted towards liberals. I was somewhat surprised by the vehemence with which ALDE Party Co-President addressed the issue, suggesting that, whilst he agreed with the principle of a contest, who might run was not so obvious.

The meeting ended somewhat fractiously, with a sense that a crowd with torches and pitchforks looking for the ALDE leadership wasn’t far away, but we ended with an invitation to Estoril, Portugal, for a potentially significant Council and Congress to take place in the first week in October. There will be elections, including to the vital role of President, and without an incumbent, the absence of any rumours of a candidacy for the role means that these will be potentially complex and hard fought.

And with that in mind, the delegates melted away into the city, many Liberal Democrats to catch flights back to their campaigns across the country.

I was left with the sense that a series of difficult decisions had been deferred rather than addressed, which suggests that Estoril in October may be interesting indeed.

* Mark Valladares is an elected member of the Party’s delegation to the ALDE Party Council.