ELF’s Youth Leaders Meeting 2018 brought together twenty five leaders (Presidents and Vice-Presidents) of Youth and Student Liberal Parties across Europe from over sixteen countries, enabling them to share best practice and share their political goals and achievements over the last year. Fledgling host, Momentum Tizen X began the meeting by sharing their experiences as a young liberal organisation with a government that turns its back on Liberalism, giving Member Organisations an opportunity to support them via video.

LYMEC’s Danica Vihinen broke the ice between the leaders and allowed them to introduce themselves and the situation of their youth parties and mother parties. Member organisation shared their problems with each other so that those with strengths in areas were able to advise and build a link with those with weakness in the areas. Speaker, Lena Hoglund, was able to then feed this into a further discussion on international cooperation and on how member organisations can support each other.

Each evening the Young Leaders dined with each other, giving them an informal opportunity to network and make relaxed conversation. Our LYMEC speaker, Antoaneta Asonova, was able to use the Young Leaders meeting to lead a productive discussion between leaders about their policy priorities ahead of the 2019 election campaign. Session allowed the leaders to discuss the Manifesto in great detail and geared up member organisations to submit meaningful amendments to the Manifesto, which will strengthen are joint position as young liberals within Europe. It was agreed this session was useful, so much so it was extended with a second session to discuss the manifesto more thoroughly. Our guest speaker, Kalle Lepola, from the Erasmus Student Network delivered a enjoyable training session on Leadership, Management, and Motivation – which forced our attendees to share their strengths and weaknesses with others and to think in depth about what motivates them alongside how to better motivate others.