The Autumn Congress 2001 was held this year in Ljubljana and, in holding the meeting in Slovenia, the ELDR became the first European political party to organise its annual congress in an accession country. Our hosts for this event were Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, and their colleagues from ELDR member party LDS.

The theme of the Congress was The Future of Europe and specific sessions were devoted to the candidate countries perspectives, the implications of Globalisation, and the deficiencies of EU foreign and security policy. Keynote speeches were from Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former Foreign Minister of Germany, Janez Drnovsek, Prime Minister of Slovenia, and Werner Hoyer, President of the ELDR Party, and the speeches and interventions of many other liberal democrat personalities informed the debate. The meeting also produced a theme resolution which represented the Congress’ contribution to the current Future of Europe debate and which set out some clear objectives ahead of the Laeken Council.

The Congress, which incorporated a meeting of the ELDR Council, also saw the adoption of a number of resolutions , including a unanimously approved urgency resolution on the recent terrorist attacks in the US. The final report of the working group on Statutory Amendments resulted in the adoption of a number of revisions to the ELDR party statutes which, in particular, opened the door for individual e-membership of the ELDR Party and established a system of limited transferable voting. Some changes to the financial rules of the party and to the rules of procedure for Council and Congress were also recommended by the report, and were subsequently adopted in Ljubljana.

The discussion and voting on the report of the Liberal Women’s Network demanded an extended debate and was therefore rescheduled for the next meeting of the ELDR Council in December. The meeting also saw the election of a new ELDR Bureau. Dr Werner Hoyer was unanimously re-elected to the position of President of the ELDR Party with Maria Kaisa Aula, Lamberto Dini, Bas Eenhoorn, and John Alderdice being elected as Vice-Presidents. Jules Maaten was also unanimously re-elected as party Treasurer. The voting procedure served to highlight some weaknesses in the existing congress processes and an assessment of this is taking place as part of the broad evaluation of the ELDR congress deemed necessary by the party in light of the increase in size and significance of this event, and the corresponding growth in the administrative burden.