ELDR Council in Zagreb

11.46.23am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 15th Apr 2007

Colin Ross at the European Parliament

I am now back from Zagreb and vaguely awake (it wasn't the jet-lag more a couple of early mornings and late nights). Council was good, there is a report below, but firstly I would like to say how nice Zagreb is - due to being in Council most of the time I didn't get to see much of it but the walk I had was lovely, it is certainly somewhere I would go back to and recommend others go to.

In the debate on Russia we were mainly in agreement in our concern with the situation there with the move away from democracy. ELDR will be holding conference later in the year on Russia to see what can be done and particularly what the European Liberal family can do.

After the discussion on Russia we moved on to planning the next ELDR Congress. This will take place on 18th and 19th of October, almost certainly in Berlin, the theme will be "Europe as a global partner". ELDR Council and Congress always seem to fall at the worst possible time for the British delegation, either during local elections, often during our conference and the next will fall in the middle of our Euro-selections, indeed in the West Midlands our hustings will take place on 20th October.

We also had a presentation from Allianta Moldove Noastra (Our Moldova) on their application to join ELDR. They were accepted overwhelming.

The other highlight was an update from the Liberal Party in France - Alternative Liberale, they are a new party just one year old but seem fantastically keen. I had a chat with one of there delegation later in the evening and he seemed sure they were on the cusp of a breakthrough - here's hoping.