Paris, 22 January 2018
General Meeting EUROCAPITALES Paris-Ile de France - January 22, 2018
The President, Jean-Paul Doguet, opened the meeting by reading the agenda and presented the moral report to the Assembly, followed by the draft programme for 2018.
MORAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR 2017
This year was inaugurated by our General Assembly on 16th January 2017, followed by a dinner at the restaurant "Au chien qui fume". On this occasion we caught up our delay and voted to renew the Executive Committee. This was a regularisation vote which allowed us to get back into order for the coming year.
This year we will proceed with the ordinary renewal of the Committee, as provided for in our statutes.
It concerns all the positions to be filled: President, Secretary General, Vice-President and Treasurer. We did not hold any bilateral meeting in 2017, which limited our activities to our monthly meetings and our annual multilateral meeting in Helsinki on 16-17-18th June 2017.We also regularly held our monthly meetings, most of them with a Café Paris-Europe. On 20 February 2017, we welcomed the testimony of an Afghan refugee, Quazie, known to Christine DORING. On March 20, Olga IMBERT commented on the results of the last elections in the Netherlands. On 24 April, Jean-Pierre MORIZOT presented the second part of his intervention on Finland. On 15 May, Christine DORING told us about her cruise in Latin America (Patagonia). On 13 June, Jean-Paul DOGUET spoke about "Ethiopia and Europe" following a trip he made there. On 18 September, we heard a contribution from Noury MANI on "Terrorism in Europe". On 16 October, Bozena STOMAL-WEIGEL spoke about sub-Saharan Africa. On 19 November, Olga IMBERT presented what she had prepared for Helsinki, "Growing old in the Netherlands". Finally, on 18 December, Jean-Pierre MORIZOT spoke about "Luther and the Reformation".
On May 9, for Europe Day, we screened Ozon's film, "Frantz", at the Lycée Henri IV, followed by a debate. It was very interesting but we deplored the low number of spectators, gathered by the Foyer of Henri IV and by information from the MEF. In addition, our Eurocapitales' party took place in a now well-established setting at the home of Jean-Paul Doguet on Sunday 2nd July.
On the weekend of 16-17-18 June, we participated in our 17th Multilateral Meeting in Helsinki, our event of the year, where our Finnish partners, in particular Aleksis PEKKALIN, surpassed themselves. Unfortunately, we had to regret that the number of participants was not very high, due among other things to the absence of the Greeks.Unfortunately, we must regret that the number of participants was not very high, due among other things to the absence of the Greeks.On Friday 16th we dined in the luxurious surroundings of the Finnjavel restaurant, in the presence of Arto ANILUOTO, the Secretary General of the Finnish ME. The following day, Saturday, was our working day, with the morning devoted to "European Defence" and the afternoon to "Ageing in Europe". The morning was spent in the old Russian officers' mess, the Casino Katajankan. We heard a contribution from our British participant, Dirk HAZELL, as well as from honorary ambassador M. RANTAKARI and from J-P MORIZOT, followed by some very stimulating exchanges.The afternoon was devoted to "Ageing in Europe". We had contributions from Kaisa KAUPPINEN (Finland), Olga IMBERT (France) and Mark PATTERSON (UK). After that, we visited a collective residence where Kaisa KAUPPINEN lives, one of the members of ME Finland, who also gave us a presentation on the situation of the Third Age in Finland. At the residence, we were welcomed by Mrs TAAVETTI, who gave us a presentation on how it works. Saturday evening's dinner was at the NJK restaurant on the island of Valkosaari opposite Helsinki, a sailing club. Sunday morning was devoted to a boat trip around Helsinki Bay. Everything was remarkable in terms of organisation and cuisine, but the low number of participants remains a source of concern and perplexity.
Dear friends, Eurocapitales is alive and well. This year, however, we have been struck by the painful death of one of our most loyal members, Odile Sabadie, and we need to renew our steering committee. New members are arriving. MEF presidents come and go, but we're still here. We are even the only association to have survived the 1998 working groups, and we owe this to our motivation, our efficiency and that of our partners. I would personally like - as I have often said - to be able to hand over this presidency one day to anyone who is interested, and I have already made this known, on the understanding that he or she can count on my support after this handover. In the meantime, I would like to express my legitimate satisfaction with what we do every year, and I would ask you to approve this report.
