Tag Archives: ALDE congress

Welcome to, as you might have suspected from the pun in the title, Athens, where liberals, friends and allies are gathering for the 40th Congress of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE) Party. I’m here in a myriad of capacities, and I’ll be covering the event for Liberal Democrat Voice.

It’s an interesting time to be a European Liberal. Good results in the European Parliamentary election earlier this year led to a rather larger centrist group in the Parliament – I use the c-word advisedly, as ALDE MEPs have been subsumed into a larger Renew Europe group, including …

It was dark, and cold… and far too early. But there was a delegation meeting at 8 a.m., and attendance was compulsory, so I dragged myself out of bed, and was in the right place, somewhere in the vast complex that is the RAI Congress Centre on the south side of Amsterdam. There was much to discuss.

Firstly, there was a delegation to organise, and jobs to assign. For someone has to be responsible for ensuring that our view on each of the resolutions was heard, that our decision on how to vote …

The final day of Congress is when the decisions get taken – electing Bureau members, determining policy, agreeing statute changes. Everything builds up to a frenzy of voting, as delegates are asked to vote for or against as many as twenty-five resolutions in one rather manic one hour session.

This is only possible because the big arguments take place in working group sessions on day 2, where compromises are reached and recommendations made to the plenary session the next day. For Liberal Democrats, this is a source of some wonderment, especially for those who have been to too many Federal Conferences. …

Another snowy dawn in Warsaw, made rather brighter by news from home, and whilst some of our delegation are paying the price for staying up to wait for the result from Richmond Park, there’s a definite spring in our step.

And so, what do we have to look forward to today?

It’s all about policy, with working groups looking at a range of resolutions, as well as the proposed reforms to the Party statutes (think constitutional amendments on steroids). Our delegation will be active participants, discussing Brexit, aspects of European democracy, economics, environmental issues and civil liberties.

In terms of the big, set-piece stuff, Congress is formally launched with speeches from the likes of Cecilia Malmström and Margrethe Vestager, two of the Liberal Commissioners, Guy Verhofstadt.

There is also a plenary debate on “Brexit and the Politics of Fear”, which includes our Willie Rennie, which may be slightly different in tone after last night’s success.