@ALDE Party Council: the lull before...

It was three weeks ago that the ALDE Party Council met in Vienna, with nothing in particular in the agenda, but a lot of anticipation for the European elections to come. You see, for most of our European sister parties, the FDP excepted, the prospects were not so as troubling. The Dutch were optimistic, as were the Danes, most other parties expected little change in terms of the number of MEPs, and talk was of the threat of extremists to the future working of the European Parliament.

Naturally, as a directly elected member of our Party's delegation, I was keen to contribute, and so after a pleasant stroll across Vienna, I headed for the policy working group. I was late, but got there in time for the only meaningful discussion, joining David Simmons in a successful effort to bring together the disparate views of D66 and VVD (Netherlands), the FDP, Italia dei Valori and the Liberal Democrats into a stance that we could all endorse.

Lunchtime saw a fringe meeting entitled "Innovation for competitiveness and sustainable growth: towards new business models?" which, at rather short notice, Ros had been asked to chair, and it was interesting, as speakers talked about how what could and might be done to encourage the rather smarter economy that Europe will need in the future.

But we then moved onto the serious business of Council, except that there wasn't that much, given how much depends on the election results. How influential will liberals be? How many will there be? Who will be the next President of the European Commission? Indeed, the only real decision taken was to accept the membership application from our hosts, NEOS - the new Austria, who were hopeful of success in their efforts to bring Austrian liberalism back to the European Parliament. In fact, the meeting ended so early that we had rather a lot of time to kill before the evening rally to launch NEOS's campaign.

I suspect that the next meeting, on 13 June, in Brussels, might be more interesting...

The pandas of Schonbrunn

Not long after the pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo, Ros went to see them with her sister. It's a long way to Edinburgh from mid-Suffolk, but Ros was really keen, having never seen a panda up close before. Sadly, her effort was in vain, as one of the pandas was off display through ill health, and the other was on a high platform, meaning that you could only see its shoulder and one ear.

Yang Yang, a very unusual panda indeed

I had, in doing my pre-trip research, realised that the zoo at Schonbrunn, in Vienna's western suburbs, apart from being the oldest zoo in the world (opened as an imperial menagerie in 1752), has pandas, and so I decided that Ros should get another opportunity to see her panda. And so, with the business part of our trip over, we set off under grey skies to see them.

Tiergarten Schönbrunn, to give it its proper name, is a surprisingly nice zoo given the limitations of space, with decent sized enclosures and seemingly happy animals. And, it feels Viennese in terms of its architecture and layout. But our priority was, of course, pandas, and we headed straight to them.

Mother and son

The pandas have been there now for more than a decade, so perhaps the excitement that Edinburgh has experienced has worn off a little, but for those starved of pandas, we were quite excited. And we weren't disappointed...

Young Fu Bao has mastered climbing already

For the zoo is only one of four zoos in Europe that have pandas, Long Hui, who is male, and Yang Yang, the female, and the only one of the four which has successfully bred naturally. Indeed, they've produced three cubs, Fu Long and Fu Hu, who now live in China. Apparently, the deal is that if cubs are produced, China gets them after two years.

Best of all, on 14 August last year, young Fu Bao was born, which meant that he was still there!

Ros was, naturally, delighted, although she now wants to see them in China, something that I can't really object to. Now, all I need to do is work out when, and how, we might get to Chengdu...

Moravian food for the soul

And so, as noted on Liberal Democrat Voice, Ros and I had gone to Vienna to attend a slightly odd meeting of the ALDE Party Council. Odd, because it felt a bit like a contractual obligation which it is kind of is. But that's a story for another post.

Having arrived in Vienna after a fairly uneventful flight, we had arranged to have dinner with the ever enchanting Jonathan Fryer, and Iain Smith, who I first met as a Young Liberal Democrat in, of all places, Aarhus, in 1989. He went on to rather better things, as an MSP and, to be honest, he's aged rather better than I have. The only catch was that we hadn't really given much thought other than where to gather, the courtyard of our hotel.

After a small libation, we headed out, only to be confronted, across the street, with a Moravian beisl, a quintessentially Austrian concept, a bit like a neighbourhood kitchen - cosy, informal, but with authentic, could have been cooked by someone at home, sort of food. And so, we decided to give it a try.

There were, as one might guess, bread dumplings involved - I love bread dumplings - meat and decent Czech beer, all combined with easy conversation and stories of politics and travel.

All in all, a very gentle introduction to Vienna. However, there was work to be done...