During its 35th session the Congress elected Mr Anders Knape (Sweden, EPP) as its new President. He succeeds in this function to Ms Gudrun Mosler-Törnström (Austria, SOC).

Our group, the ILDG, will continue to be represented in the Bureau of the Congress by two members entitled to vote: Ms Liisa Ansala (Finland, re-elected Vice-President of the Chamber of Local Authorities) and Ms Yuliya Svitlychna (Ukraine, re-elected Vice-President of the Chamber of Regions). Two other ILDG members sit on the Bureau with a consultative mandate: ILDG President Mr Marc Cools (Belgium) and Chair of the Current Affairs Committee Ms Gabriele Neff (Germany). Ms Neff has also been re-elected for a second term.

Three thematic spokespersons of the Congress also come from the ILDG: Ms Liisa Ansala on youth, Stewart Dickson (UK) on observation of local and regional elections and Harald Bergmann (Netherlands) on human rights at local and regional level. Although thematic spokespersons are not members of the Bureau, they play an important role in representing the Congress and authoring reports related to their thematic mandate