ELDR Council and Congress

2.16.03pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 16th Oct 2006

Romanian House of Parliament

I got back last night from Bucharest and the ELDR Council and Congress but have left it until today to write about it - mainly due to being so tired! Firstly I would like to say Bucharest is a great place with such a huge potential and whilst I did not visit anyone outside the capital this time I will certainly be returning to do so.

A Church in Central Bucharest

On Thursday we had the ELDR Council itself, I am one of the eight directly elected Liberal Democrats on it (elected by the Liberal Democrats) and have been for a couple of years. The Council itself Draft Agenda finalised everything for the Congress and discussed the urgencies. We also voted to accept some new members. Finally we confirmed the appointment of the new ELDR Secretary-General.

Fusion of old and new in Bucharest

The ELDR Congress started in the afternoon and continued on Friday. The theme this year was "Working together for a secure and free Europe", we split the theme resolutions from the other resolutions between two drafting committees. I am glad to say a number of my interventions in the drafting committee were accepted into the final text. The British Liberal Democrats did not get there way on everything, and it was interesting to see the changing coalitions at work on various issues - but that is democracy.

An original brick building modenised using glass

We heard several keynote speeches - including one from the Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu (of the PNL) and Graham Watson - Leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament and Pat Cox who is always good value.

There was a Fringe meeting on Thursday hosted by the European Liberal Women Network (ELWN) on combating Human Trafficking and a visit on Saturday to some shelters for victims of Trafficking and abuse. This events were not only very interesting but very moving - I will write more on this later in the week.

Finally at ELDR Congress we elect a number of positions, this year it was three Vice Presidents that were to be elected. On Thursday I was asked to be the Returning Officer for the Congress, so much of Friday was spent doing various Returning Officer duties, including the counting and announcing the result - whilst I am obviously impartial, lets put it this way I was happy with the election results.

The European Liberal Democrat Congress taking place in Romania, Bucharest on 12-13 October is among the largest in the party"s history, with other 900 delegates coming from the 53 member parties present at yesterday's opening in the Romanian House of Parliament.