Paying tribute to the leading role of Liberal MEPs in forcing the resignation of the Santer Commission, the party pledged to continue to fight vigorously for efficient, democratic and transparent EU institutions. At the next IGC the Liberals will argue for an extension of the Parliament s budgetary and constitutional role, as well as for a Bill of Rights. The Liberal programme emphasised how the real completion of the single market and a hard-headed approach to the application of subsidiarity to economic policy would encourage the emergence of a more entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. The role of the EU should be to guarantee fair competition and social justice, the liberalisation of trade and environmental and consumer protection. The Congress called for the earliest possible membership of the euro by the UK, Denmark and Sweden.
Liberals support a switch of agricultural spending to rural development and countryside management.
They express concern that the EU s position at the forthcoming WTO negotiations will not have been enhanced by the Agenda 2000 package. In the first elections for a Scottish Parliament on 6 May the Labour Party failed to get a majority and now depends on cooperation with the Liberal Democrats to govern. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace announced that under certain conditions he would be ready to enter into a coalition with Labour. British media state that the likely Speaker of the new Parliament will be Lord Steel, Past President of Liberal International. In English local elections on the same day the Liberal Democrats lost some seats, but had an important victory in taking control of the council of Sheffield from Labour.