ELDR Focus Year

From 6th to 11th July, around 25 young liberals from all over Europe met in Liverpool in the United Kingdom to discuss how local government can deliver for citizens while at the same time keeping budgets balanced.

The nearly week-long seminar “Liberal Economy in Local Governance” was supported by the ALDE group in the Committee of the Regions and organized in co-operation with LYMEC member organization Liberal Youth from the UK.

Councillor Flo Clucas OBE , welcoming participants in her home town, gave among other things an overview how extraordinary well Liverpool developed in the last decade thanks to European Union funding and Liberal Democrat rule in the city council, cleaning up after inheriting chaos and bleak overall conditions. Participants had the opportunity to engage in peer-to-peer discussions as well as in role-play and cultural activities and had opportunity to exchange about local campaign techniques.

'Local politics influence much of our everyday life. We were happy to conduct a seminar enabling the participants to exchange their experiences and concerns from their respective countries on the European level and possibly use the positive examples from this seminar in their future work at the level of local politics' commented LYMEC Bureau member Vedrana Gujic.