At a meeting of its leaders on 21 March in Brussels, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party will pick its team of top-class candidates ahead of the Spring European Council.
The Party Congress, held in Madrid in November 2018 (see EUROPE 12135), decided that Team Europe, a team of candidates for the next Commission, would be elected at the Party Council meeting in Berlin on 9 February.
However, on the morning of Wednesday, January 30, the party's political organisation committee decided otherwise. Several reasons have been given for this decision: - for some people it is still too early to make a public commitment; - there are still many unknowns regarding the candidates heading the national lists; - the ministers from the Liberal Alliance wanted to be involved.
The party's electoral council, comprising around 150 to 160 people, including five European Commissioners, eight Liberal Prime Ministers and party leaders, will meet on the morning of 21 March.
The vote will involve the team as a whole, not each person separately. The number of members who will be in the team is not yet known, but is likely to be less than ten. The selection criteria meet the requirement for diversity set out by the Party Council: geographic diversity as well as diversity of gender, age, and political approach between social liberals and other liberals.
The date could present the party with communication difficulties, however, according to an internal source, as the presentation of the team of top-class candidates could be overshadowed by a historic European Council, a few days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)