The ALDE Group is using the meeting, which has brought 44 Euro-representatives to Bilbao, to analyse its strategy for the second half of the year, prepare next week's plenary session in Strasbourg and make an assessment of six months of Spanish presidency of the European Union. The ALDE Group, led by the Belgian ex-prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, is the 3rd largest political group in the European Parliament with 84 members.

At the beginning of the meeting the president of the Bizkai Buru Batzar explained the central role of EAJ-PNV in Basque society, its leadership in the construction of autonomy and the country and the self-governance policies and instruments that explain why "The Basque Country has exactly half as much unemployment as Spain". Ortuzar likewise referred to the European vocation of the PNV which has formed part of its ideology since the early decades of the last century, and in the political praxis of personalities such as the lehendakari Agirre, who lived through the first steps in the building of Europe along with Schumann and Adenahuer. The bationalist leader also expressed his conviction that this visit will ensure that "a good handful of Euro-representatives will get to know our country better and will help us to disseminate its true image throughout Europe".

Izaskun Bilbao, the EAJ-PNV Euro-member, expressed the same opinion, underlining the fact that "on too many occasions the image of the Basque Country has been associated with violence. From now on, I would like you, after having had the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into our country, to transmit the idea that the Basque Country is inhabited by a hard-working people, peaceful and committed to economic development, to the real economy, to social development and innovation. For that reason I hope that at the end of this visit you will understand why I speak of regionalisation in all my interventions in the European Parliament."
The ex-prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, thanked the organisers of the meeting in Bilbao and expressed his interest in getting to know the prerogative institutions of Basque self-government, especially the Economic Agreement, and expressed his satisfaction at incorporating the PNV within his Group. He did not doubt that in the coming municipal elections "the PNV will once again be the winning party as it was in the last autonomous community elections in spite of the agreement between the PP and PSOE which removed it from the Basque Government".