Individual Members

Background

Established in the 70’s, LYMEC originally was a pure umbrella organisation of national liberal youth organisations, i.e. LYMEC’s members were national liberal youth organisations only.

However, the political environment in Europe has changed incessantly within the last decades. Nowadays more than 80% of legislation in the European Union is made on the European level and then transformed into national law. Therefore a focus on solely national issues is not sufficient anymore to ensure a strong influence of liberal thinking in the European decision making processes. In order to cope with these challenges LYMEC as early as 1997 established the Individual Members Section (IMS) for expanding its workforces and providing more young liberals a platform to stand for liberal matters on the European level. In fact, the idea to enable individuals to get involved in European politics and thus assume public responsibility is a truly liberal approach and not applied in other European parties yet.

Moreover the entire situation is rather unique as never before in modern history democratic parties faced decision making going beyond their field of activity in that extend.

The Potential

The dialogue with civil society becomes more and more important for corporate and public decision making. The more influence multinationals and transnational institutions gain the more they depend on external expertise in order to find appropriate solutions for complex problems. The European Commission for instance engages external proficiency to carry out “Impact Assessments” in order to judge major impacts of complex decisions throughout the European Union.

These trends put LYMEC in quite a similar situation as the political challenges that Europe faces in future will require more than separate part solutions on the national level. The Individual Members Section is the key element for LYMEC to profit from the experience and knowledge of people from many different backgrounds. Furthermore these people will share the experiences they gained in LYMEC with others in civil society and thus spread liberal ideas and publicity for LYMEC. The IMS must be attractive to people who cannot rely on being integrated into LYMEC by a national party.