During the 4th plenary the delegates voted on the conference proposals and approved all presented documents. As most of discussions and debates took place during the workshops and most agreements were achieved, the voting went smoothly without further disputes and delays.

After a coffee break the delegates gathered together for the 5th plenary. This plenary started with a presentation of an honorary Vice-President to Jackie Lewis. Jackie Lewis was one of ILGA-Europe founders and as the co-chairs put it, ‘mother ‘of ILGA-Europe’s constitution. Deborah Lambillotte and Riccardo Gottardi, Co-Chairs of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board, delivered touching speech and presented Jackie Lewis a certificate of appreciation for her contribution towards equality and human rights for LGBT people. Congratulation and appreciation speeches were also delivered by Kurt Krickler, other honorary Vice-President, Steffen Jensen, another co-founder of ILGA-Europe, and Patricia Prendiville, Executive Director of ILGA-Europe. Delegates from UNISON congratulated Jackie with a musical performance and sang “Leader of the pack” by Shangri Las, but of course with slightly different lyrics, we will publish the lyrics of this specially tailored version for Jackie later on our website.

The Norwegian delegates initiation for the conference to adopt a resolution toreflect the ban of a Rainbow Flag event by the Mayor of Vilnius, the protest demonstration outside the conference venue and the indecent at Soho bar when some delegates became targets and witnessed a smoke bomb attach. The conference supported this proposal and once linguistic details will be finalised the text will be publish on our website. The delegates were encourages to distribute this resolution widely to their countries’ media.

Later the awaited election results were presented and a new Executive Board of ILGA-Europe for 2007-2008 was announced. The new ten members of the Executive Board are:

1. Pierre Serne (France) – 122 votes

2. Renato Sabbadini (Italy) – 121 votes

3. Lisette Kampus (Estonia) – 117 votes

4. Ruth Baldacchino (Malta) – 109 votes

5. Chrsitine Le Doare (France) – 108 votes

6. Martin Christensen (Denmark) – 99 votes

7. Deborah Lambillotte (Belgium) – 98 votes

8. Linda Freimane (Latvia) – 88 votes

9. Tomasz Szypula (Poland) – 76 votes

10.Natasa Sukic (Slovenia) – 68 votes

The reserve members elected are:

· Paata Sabelashvili (Georgia) – 67 votes

· Irmeli Krans (Swededn) – 26 votes

Ruth Baldacchino (Malta) and Janfrans van der Eerden (Netherlands) were elected as European representatives on ILGA Executive Board.

The delegates than overwhelmingly voted for Malta as a host venue for ILGA-Europe’s annual conference in 2009. The official election results document is available below.

Before the new board took over, there was a speech by Riccardo Gottardi, board members for 5 years, who assured the conference that while is no longer be on the board, he will definitely be around and continue his work as activist. He also presented a gift to the Lithuanian Gay League, a rainbow flag with ArciGay logo, to support and encourage the Lithuanian group not give up and to continue fighting and believing that one day they will be allowed to raise their rainbow flag over Vilnius.

In the end of the plenary thanks were expressed to ILGA-Europe’s staff team, Lithuanian volunteers, conference chairing pool and election officers. The plenary ended with a gift being given to each delegate by the Lithuanian Gay League, a CD with photographs from the conference and ILGA-Europe’s flag passed by the Lithuania Gay League to the next year’s conference in Vienna.