Categorie: ALDE

Van 8 tot 10 november vond voor de 33ste keer het jaarlijks congres van de ELDR Partij plaats, dit maal in het Ierse Dublin. Annemie Neyts was één v an de meer dan 500 aanwezigen. Het theme van deze conferentie draaide om energie.

Meer informatie over het congres is terug te vinden op de ELDR website: informatie over het programma, de verkiezingen van het ELDR Bureau en over de resoluties.

http://www.eldr.eu/en/congress2012

Afgelopen ELDR congres in Palermo was Annemie Neyts haar 6de en laatste congres als voorzitter van de Europese liberale partij. Aan haar de eer om het congres te openen.

Dear Presidents, Leaders, Ministers, and Members of Parliament,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends,

 

It is my honour and pleasure to officially open the ELDR congress in Palermo, which is the sixth and last congress of my tenure as ELDR President. The realisation that an important chapter in my political life draws to a close fills me both with regret and joy. Regret because a wonderful period of hard work ends, and joy because of all the friendship and support I enjoyed during those six years, and hopefully will continue to enjoy in the years to come. Believe me: it is a good thing that our statutes limit the membership of the ELDR Bureau to a maximum of three successive terms. If this wasn’t the case I am indeed afraid that many of us would carry on way past the limits of our members’ endurance, because it is such an challenging and fulfilling undertaking to help shape European Liberalism.

 

Dear friends, before turning to the future, I have the sad task to ask you to share in the remembrance of two great Liberals who died in the last few months.

David Griffith was for years the devoted treasurer of successively Liberal International and ELDR, paying minute attention to our financial health and sustainability, and enlightening us with his vast wisdom and experience. His health had deteriorated these last few years, but he continued to come to Brussels as long as he possibly could. He died in August and will be regretted dearly by all of us.

 

Willy De Clercq was among the founders of ELDR in 1976, and was elected as its President in 1981. He remained our President until he resigned to become EU Commissioner for Foreign Trade at the end of that year. In that capacity he played a key role in opening up the world markets to European goods and services. In the meanwhile, he had presided over the adoption of the ELDR election Manifesto for the second direct elections of the European Parliament. When his Commission mandate ended, he resumed his participation in all major ELDR events, and so it came about that we could persuade him to run for the Presidency at the eleventh hour during our 1990 Congress in Ireland. He was duly elected and remained our President until 1994. And again he presided over the adoption of an election manifesto this time for the 1994 direct European elections.

 

I must confess that we gave him a harder time than you ever gave me during our congresses, but he always remained his kind, wise and benevolent self.

Willy De Clercq has been one of our strongest supporters through all of those years, and many of us keep the fondest of memories of his wife’s and his participation in so many of our events.

May I request a minute of silence in remembrance of our two friends?

 

Thank you.

 

 

Dear friends, we are assembled in Palermo, the capital city of an island that has played a key role in European and World history. As Leoluca Orlando reminds us, this is not only an islands graced by the Gods of Ancient times, it has been for centuries a meeting point of cultures, languages and religions. Alas, it has also been a battle field for most of the European dynasties.

It is also the unforgettable backdrop of Lampedusa’s classic novel “Il Gattopardo” in which the old patriarch says “everything has to change so that everything can remain unchanged.”

 

I don’t know whether that also applies to Europe, and maybe it does, more than we suspect. In any case, it is fitting that it was on this very island, in the city of Messinathat the foreign ministers of the six founding nations of Europe decided to launch the European Community. That momentous meeting took place in 1955. Two years later, in Rome, a Treaty was signed that indeed established a European Community.

 

The speed of it all was astonishing, especially if we contrast it with the painfully slow pace of the most recent institutional and regulatory adjustments. Some observers will remark that changes take longer when 27 members are involved, rather than the original 6. Unfortunately the gravest divergences occur not among the 27 member states, but precisely among the founding 6. So size is not the explanation. Then what is?

 

If we look back at the fifties, we should realise that the founding fathers anticipated on the impending changes and realised that they needed to unite better in order to withstand the challenges and threats that surrounded them. One was the irresistible economic growth and expansion of the United States which was a challenge, not a threat, and the other was the rise of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain that had been cruelly drawn right through the heart of Europe, a severe threat if there ever was one.

 

I would daresay that this spirit has survived through the decades, right until the resounding NO on the referenda in Denmark, France, Ireland and the Netherlands.

 

These days we are submerged under a tsunami of laments and articles by economists, political scientists, philosophers and other pundits who write that they had known all along that the Euro zone was a misfit and would never work; Paul Krugman, Noble Prize laureate, foremost among them.

I say, it is high time that we stop these laments, that we squarely face the situation and start doing something serious about it. The succession of small steps, each of them too little too late, should stop. If ever it was the moment to do something really bold, it is now. Several of our member parties are in government; the single largest ideological group in the Commission is formed by liberal commissioners. Together, we must lay the foundations for a renewed Union which succeeds in properly rebalancing the member states and the institutions of the Union. We are in this together; we should rescue ourselves before it is too late. And we can achieve this, if we start by looking soberly at the facts. The first fact I want to bring to your attention, is that the Euro currency is still, perhaps amazingly to some, going strong. The Euro still stands at about 1,35 dollars. It stood at 0, 87 dollars when it was introduced.   May I point to the fact that the Euro is NOT the problem; it holds most probably the solution.

 

So we should stop talking about the euro crisis because there is no euro crisis. But there certainly is a sovereign debt crisis. Here also, balance is probably the answer. The medicine to be administered should not be so strong as to kill the patient. Thirdly, something strong should be done about the market, the sacrosanct market. May I offer the opinion that there is no such thing as a benevolent, morally superior market, which is entitled to whip member states into discipline and conformity?   There are operatives, actors active on those markets, often acting as real predators anxious at making big bucks without any moral consideration whatsoever. We should not give them free rein. I am not sure that a financial transaction tax would do the trick, probably just the contrary, but we cannot allow pure speculators to destroy the very economic and financial fabric of our societies.

 

Of course the huge deficits must be diminished but at a rate and a pace that is sustainable and that leaves room for investment, perspective and hope.

Finally, we should anticipate the future.   Too often, the remedies which are devised are modelled on the last crisis, as if the next one will be a replica of that last one. Unfortunately, that is almost never the case. To drive a car while looking only in the rear window is dangerous business.

 

Foremost, we need to shake ourselves free from the paralysing fear, from the doomsayers. As I said in Helsinki last week, this is not the first crisis, or upheaval or whatever you want to call it, and it most probably won’t be the last. We have weathered the previous ones; we will weather this one, provided we believe sufficiently in ourselves and spread the hope around us.

I do very much wish that this congress will be the start of just such a renewal.

 

And, ladies and gentlemen I have one announcement to make which points to such renewal. Our secretary General Federica Sabbati is not among us, she began her maternity leave this week and is no longer allowed to fly because she will give birth for the second time in early December. Isn’t that a beautiful, a wonderful sign of hope?

 

I have a last duty to perform on this stage, and that is to present Markus Löning with a farewell present. Just as me, Markus has completed his six years mandate on the ELDR Bureau and therefore is leaving. Markus has been a wonderful colleague and one of the strong holders of the ELDR bureau. Therefore, in the name of all of us, I say: Markus, thank you so much and please accept this souvenir.

 

 

Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck

ELDR President

MEP

Palermo, Friday 25 November 2011.

 

Dear President in waiting,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends,

 

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I absolutely hate farewells and goodbyes. I much prefer to tiptoe discreetly away, hide my regrets and come back later, in a different capacity and with a light heart. As this is not to be, I ask you to bear with me for a few more minutes.

As I hand over the ELDR presidency, it is fitting to make an inventory of the many strengths and the weaknesses of our party on this very day.

Among its strengths, the greatest one is certainly its staff: multinational, multilingual, talented, dedicated and fiercely loyal : one couldn’t wish for a better team. ELDR owns its office space, within walking distance of the European Parliament and that includes a meeting room for some 20 people. It offers not only a sense of belonging but could also serve as collateral, if that ever was needed. Highly unlikely for the moment because our finances are healthy and safe, but much will depend on the outcome of the next European elections. The size of our grant is indeed directly linked to the number of MEP’s elected on the lists of our member parties.

For it is an inescapable truth that ELDR’s strength depends on the strength of our member parties. ELDR is only as strong as they are and does weaken when they do.

The map of liberal Europe offers some stark contrasts. As this juncture, our political group in the EP has no members from Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, the Republic of Cyprus and Malta. Several more of our member parties have disappeared from their national Parliaments as well. Two more seem on the brink of suffering the same fate in days to come.

This obviously is a sorry state of affairs and it won’t be easy to correct, but we must continue to attempt it. We greatly increased our efforts towards party building with seminaries and trainings both “in theater” if I may say so and in Brussels. The truth however is that you cannot found nor build nor even sustain a political party from the outside. What you need for party building are teams of women and men “in loco”, “on the spot” with the will, the motivation and the ambition to build and sustain a political, in this case a liberal party.

My liberal heart bleeds when I watch liberal parties, and that includes my own, resign themselves to decline.

The explanations are many, some of them well founded, but resignation is certainly not the answer.

One of the most frequent explanations is that liberalism is unpopular and one is then told that this has been the case since the 19th century or, more recently, that the preset financial turmoil doesn’t exactly provide a good context for liberal proposals.

About two years ago ELDR and ELF, together with a team of academics decided to verify the validity of such allegations. We conducted a survey in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Austria to find out whether or not the basic tenets of liberalism (most of them to do with individual freedoms) are popular and, more critically, to what degree the public associates them with the self-avowed liberal parties.

We found that liberal ideas are indeed widely approved but that they are not spontaneously attributed to liberal parties. On one point however the respondents in Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland diverged from liberal orthodoxy. They trust the state more than the private sector to provide jobs and overall security.

A first tentative conclusion is that the weakness of liberalism in those countries is not due to the feeble degree of acceptance of liberal ideas, but is most probably linked to the weakness of the parties that are supposed to embody them.

These findings and the too  many blind spots on the map of European liberalism literally lay out for us the work that needs to be done in the years to come.

It may very well be that economic liberalism is in dire need of reinvention and refoundation and to start doing that would certainly be most exciting. Imagine : ditching Ayn Rand, rediscovering Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill (although he calls himself a socialist in his autobiography) wouldn’t that be truly, really exciting?

Giving liberal humanism pride of place, reducing economics to what they are: a means, and not an end. Wouldn’t that be just as exciting?

But in the meanwhile we absolutely need to look after and care for “the little ones” as we say in Dutch, I mean in this case, the member parties.

We are nearing the half term of the European legislature. The new bureau and its President face the daunting, but exciting task to prepare the next European elections, and to prepare them well. Our whole future depends largely upon them.

If I can be of any help, you can count on me.

En attendant, I wish you well and thank you for all your support.

 

 

Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck, MEP.

Als voorzitter van de Europese Liberale Partij (ELDR) zit Annemie haar voorlaatste congres voor. Dit gaat deze keer door in Helsinki van 13 tot 15 oktober.

Als thema kozen de Europese liberalen voor de “demografische uitdagingen van de 21ste eeuw in Europa.”

Het congres zal thema’s zoals een verouderende bevolking, migratie, enz … behandelen

Hier vindt u meer informatie over het congres.

Het onderwerp wordt hier uitgebreider behandeld.

Annemie, als voorzitter van de Europese liberale en democratische partij (ELDR), antwoordt de Europese socialisten naar aanleiding van hun open brief.

 

Brief van de liberalen aan de PES en socialisten in geheel Europa

Brussel, 15 april 2009

Geachte heer Nyrup Rasmussen, geachte Europese socialisten,

Hartelijk dank voor uw brief.

U bent verbaasd over onze toewijding aan de interne markt. Dat is niet nodig. Liberalen geloven dat Europeanen baat hebben bij de interne markt, die Europese consumenten meer keuzemogelijkheden en betere producten biedt en Europese bedrijven in staat stelt te groeien en banen te creëren .

Denkt u dat Denemarken beter af zou zijn zonder de mogelijkheden die de interne markt biedt? Zouden Deense consumenten zonder Franse kaas, Italiaanse schoenen, Duitse technologie of Finse telefoons willen leven? Denkt u dat Deense bedrijven hun goederen niet meer naar de rest van Europa willen exporteren waarmee ze de banen van hun werknemers op het spel zouden zetten?

De interne markt is voor liberalen geen doel op zich, maar vormt het meest efficiënte middel om aan de vraag van burgers tegemoet te komen.

We geloven in een universele plicht tot dienstverlening en we zijn trots op onze toewijding aan open postdiensten. Wilt u werkelijk terugkeren naar een wereld van postmonopolies? Bent u dan de wachtrijen vergeten? Concurrentie dwingt monopolies hun klanten beter van dienst te zijn, leidt tot meer keuzemogelijkheden en lagere prijzen en strekt de samenleving in het algemeen tot voordeel door ervoor te zorgen dat meer producten beschikbaar komen voor iedereen. Hebben staatsmonopoliën consumenten ooit meer voordeel opgeleverd?

De publieke gezondheidszorg in de gehele EU blijkt niet aan de behoeften van patiënten te kunnen voldoen. Socialisten beschouwen patiënten als ontvangers; liberalen zien ze als consumenten die de best mogelijke dienstverlening vragen. Patiënten willen kunnen kiezen en concurrentie zal tot betere gezondheidszorg voor alle Europeanen leiden. De socialistische regering van het Verenigd Koninkrijk kon de tekortkomingen van de Britse Nationale Gezondheidsdienst in 12 jaar niet verhelpen. Zijn de maandenlange wachtlijsten voor een operatie niet het beste argument om de grenzen voor behandelingen open te stellen?

Europese consumenten profiteren van succesvolle internationale projecten zoals de Thalys of de Eurostar, terwijl de nationale spoorwegen van Duitsland, die staatseigendom zijn, steeds duurder worden. Als u de dienstverlening van de markt vergelijkt met de dienstverlening van de staat, zult u al snel tot de ontdekking komen dat de krachten van de markt veel beter tegemoetkomen aan de vraag van burgers en leiden tot groei, banen en mogelijkheden. Staten kunnen voor regelgeving zorgen, maar kunnen geen welvaart en banen scheppen.

Het manifest van de European Liberal Democrats laat er geen twijfel over bestaan dat de welvaart en het welzijn van Europese burgers ons nog altijd na aan het hart liggen.

Enkele weken geleden trok u in twijfel of wij als liberalen wel om gelijke kansen geven. Daden spreken luider dan woorden!

De voorzitter van de ELDR is een vrouw. Maar de voorzitter van de PES? De secretaris-generaal van de ELDR is een vrouw. Maar de secretaris-generaal van de PES? 5 van de 7 vicevoorzitters van de ELDR zijn vrouwen. Hoeveel vrouwen zitten er in het bestuur van de PES? 42% van de liberale leden van het Europees Parlement is vrouw en neemt een machtige positie in binnen onze parlementsfractie. Hoe zit dat bij uw parlementsfractie?

De lijsten voor de Europese verkiezingen van de liberale partijen worden aangevoerd door een vrouw in Zweden, Denemarken, Nederland, Duitsland, Estland en Engeland, terwijl u aan patriarchale partijstructuren lijkt vast te houden.

Dat geldt ook voor het stemgedrag van socialisten in het Europees Parlement. Slechts enkele weken geleden stemde de Socialistische fractie tegen of onthield zich van stemmen toen het Europees Parlement vóór de dialoog tussen China en Tibet stemde. Waarom?

De Socialistische fractie ondersteunde niet het rapport van het Parlement over een nieuwe samenwerkingsovereenkomst tussen de EU en Rusland om de mensenrechtensituatie in Rusland te verbeteren. Waarom?

Komt dat misschien doordat de alliantiepatronen van het oude communisme voor socialisten zwaarder wegen dan de universele wapenfeiten van de burgerlijke vrijheden?

Terwijl socialisten het moeten hebben van angst, twijfel en onzekerheid, gaan liberalen uit van hoop, vertrouwen en optimisme. Anderen maken zich zorgen, wij bieden de antwoorden.

 

 

Annemie Neyts

Voorzitter van de ELDR

Op 24 januari 2008 organiseren de ELDR (de Europese liberale partij) en de liberale fractie in de Raad van Europa een conferentie over de relaties tussen de Europese Unie en Rusland. Deze conferentie zal doorgaan in het Renaissance Hotel te Brussel (Rue du Parnasse 19, 1050 Brussel) van 10 tot 18.30. Inschrijven kan op het secretariaat van de ELDR via rplummer@eldr.eu of op 02/237.01.47.

 

ELDR Conferentie

Russia : A part of Europe or Apart from Europe?

Donderdag 24 Januari 2008

Renaissance Hotel
Parnassusstraat 19
1050 Brussel

 

10:00 – 10:15             Verwelkoming door Annemie Neyts, Voorzitter ELDR Partij, Lid van het Europees Parlement

 

10:15 – 10:30              Inleiding

 

10:30 – 11:30                         An overview of Russia and EU–Russia relations

 

Gemodereerd door Annemie Neyts, Voorzitter ELDR Partij, Lid van het Europees Parlement

 

– Falk Bomsdorf, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, Moskou, Rusland

– Professor Mark Entin, European Union studies institute of Moscow State University of international relations. Directeur van de Jean Monnet zetel

– Mikhail Kasyanov , Voorzitter van de   People’s Democratic Union en voormalig Eerste Minister, Rusland

 

11:30 – 11:45                         Koffiepauze

 

11:45 – 13:00                         Trade and business with Russia

 

Gemodereerd door Kristiina Ojuland, Ondervoorzitter van de Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers, Estland

 

– Howard Chase, Directeur, European Government Affairs, BP Europa

– Dennis Kredler, Strategy Analyst, European Roundtable of Industrialists

 

 

 

13:00 – 14:30              Persconferentie en Lunch

 

 

14:30 – 15:45                         Watchdogs of democracy: Civil society and political parties

 

Gemodereerd door Maxim Reznik, Voorzitter van Yabloko St Petersburg, Rusland

 

– Grigory Yavlinsky, Voorzitter Yabloko Partij, Rusland

– Dr Timofei Bordachev, Directeur, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the State University – Higher School of Economics, Rusland

 

15:45 – 17:00                         EU foreign policy with regard to Russia

 

– Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Lid van het Europees Parlement, Polen

– Laetitia Spetschinsky, InBev-Baillet Latour Chair, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

 

17:00 – 17:15              Conclusie door Annemie Neyts, Voorzitter ELDR Partij, Lid van het Europees Parlement

 

17:15                           Cocktail