Graham Watson MEP

Here at the start of our 54th Congress there is a new self confidence in Liberalism. Colleagues, look around you. Count not only the number of delegates, but the positions of responsibility they hold: as Mayors like Omar Jazouli, our host in this impressive city of Marrakech; as Members of Parliament, as Ministers. And where in opposition, as fighters for freedom and drivers of democracy and development. Close your eyes for a few seconds. Sense our strength. Feel our influence. Imbibe the immense intellectual horsepower in this hall.

Then ask the question, why? Why is this conference so much bigger, even than five years ago? And vastly more impressive than ten or twenty years past? The answer is that on the progressive wing of politics Liberalism is increasingly the only show in town.

Not if we’re divided, as we were this week in Nicaragua, where otherwise Edoardo Montealegre would have won a famous victory. But if we’re united, like in Sweden last month or in Catalonia last week, we’re stronger than ever.

Liberalism can be the biggest show in town because the major fault line in politics runs no longer between left and right over economic issues, whatever Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez would have their socialist followers believe. The divide is increasingly over what I would call drawbridge issues. Imagine a medieval fortress, with a choice between raising the drawbridge to keep out the world or lowering it to engage in contact. Nowadays there are those who react to globalisation by pulling the drawbridge up and those who want it down.

In the ‘drawbridge up’ category are the American Republicans, Europe’s right wing parties and dictatorships around the globe. They fear infection from without: alien ideas, alien influences. They retreat into their laagers: nationalism for the conservative parties, religious orthodoxy for the christian democrats. They seek to close borders, markets, minds. On the left, they know not where they go. Those who cannot cope with change pull up the drawbridge too. Others search vainly for a ‘third way’, not seeing that this way lies Liberalism. In the words of former British socialist minister Anthony Crosland some years ago, their problem is not simply that they lack maps for the new territory they are crossing but that they believe experienced travellers need no maps.

We Liberals know where we stand and where we are going. We are the ‘drawbridge down’ brigade. Seeking contact and dialogue. Preferring the soft power of the peaceful hand of friendship to the threat of armed attack. Promoting dialogue between conflicting creeds. Opening our markets. Knowing, with Kofi Annan, that migrations are necessary. Fighting the fetters to freedom of the fortress philosophy. In the European Parliament we’ve written about it in our new book ‘Liberal Democracy and Globalisation’, available at a ridiculously reasonable price from my website.

Perhaps the ground has moved this week. The issues in the US mid term election were not essentially around Iraq – though they should have been – but around the administration’s failure to understand Iraq; around the excesses of the fight against terror, the hypocrisy of the religious right, accountability in government. Essentially, America voted to lower the drawbridge. Let us hope that’s reflected in trade policy too.

In the EU it is the growing importance of drawbridge issues which has brought Liberals new found support. When the European Council meets there are now six Liberal prime ministers around the table. In the European Commission, with our new Commissioners from Bulgaria and Romania, there will be more from the Liberal family than any other political family. And in the European Parliament on the first of January we will have 107 MEPs, twice as many as in any previous mandate.

I am pleased to have with me here today MEPs Annemie Neyts, Lydie Polfer, Lena Ek, Anneli Jaatenmakki, Jeanine Hennis and Ovidiu Silaghi.

Our strength gives us more influence in Parliament too. Influence we have used to force the Council of Ministers to legislate in public, boosting transparency in government; to force a judicial review of a deal which breached data privacy laws by passing airline passenger information to the US authorities; to promote peace and progress by supporting EU membership for Romania and Bulgaria and keeping open the door for others. Since we are in Morocco, let me add that I have used my position as MEP for Gibraltar to force the European Commission to review the UKSpanish deal on ‘frozen’ pensions for Gibraltar shipyard workers: why should workers from our neighbour and partner Morocco be discriminated against?

Increasingly, Liberal MEPs are lifting their horizons beyond the EU to run joint activities with the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, the Liberal Network in Latin America, the African Liberal Network and – I hope soon – the new ALMENA network for Liberals in the Middle East and North Africa.

Because we recognise that the three major challenges for humankind – population growth and development, climate change and internationally organised crime, where some criminal gangs are now more powerful than some national governments – are common challenges. They require common responses. They demand Liberal answers.