@ALDEParty Council: I've written my Liszt, I'm checking it twice...

Alright, I lied, there was always going to be a pun...

Council has met in both halves of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in my relatively short time back in ALDE, and it will be nice to be on the banks of the Danube after so many years (alright, it isn't blue, but it is fairly deep). But there is business to attend to and, as I may be the only Liberal Democrat who campaigned for election to our Council delegation on the basis that I would... attend Council and discuss the administration of ALDE (bloody radical, eh?), the only way you'll ever know is if I preview it. So, here goes...

Meetings of Council that take part within the Congress agenda are seldom exciting by comparison, and this one is no exception. However, there are some potentially interesting items on the agenda.

The two membership applications offer ALDE a route back towards relevance in Eastern and Central Europe, as Liberalisok, the Hungarian Liberal Party, and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Party, from Romania, are both up for consideration. One of the prime reasons for us being here is to encourage the liberal forces is what has become a very nationalist, conservative country to rebuild after a very difficult period. As for the Romanians, the defection of our previous member party to the European People's Party was a blow, and any credible pan-European political party really needs a presence there.

The statutes are up for debate too. The past few years have seen a number of significant changes to the structure of ALDE, with the emergence of an individual membership programme and a more active Gender Equality Network. In the wider European political environment, the emergence of common candidates for leadership roles makes demands on the political parties too.

Whilst Congress is responsible for the statutes, Council has to deal with the mechanics of it all, and so we'll be looking at voting rights for the individual members, resolution submission rights for the Gender Equality Network, as well as electoral procedure rules. In terms of the wider European issues, the process by which a common top candidate for European elections is on the table, with the means for adoption of a common electoral manifesto also to be discussed - not something that we in the Liberal Democrats have ever really cleaved to.

Of course, we'll be looking at the finances, including the increasingly innovative ideas for fundraising emerging from the Bureau and the Secretariat, and quizzing the Bureau on their activity over the past six months.

But, in the background, the intriguing will be constant, as the two Presidential and ten Vice-Presidential candidates, including our own Ros Scott, campaign for support. Don't worry, Liberal Bureaucracy will be covering it all...