Paris, 14 February 2022
General Meeting of 14 February 2022
The Chairman, Jean-Paul Doguet, opened the meeting by reading out the agenda and presenting the annual report to the General Meeting, followed by the draft 2022 programme.
ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2021
Our Annual General Meeting was held at the restaurant La Parenthèse, 32 bd du Montparnasse, 75015 Paris at 5 pm, followed by dinner.
We proceeded with the ordinary renewal of the Committee, as provided for in our Articles of Association. The members remain unchanged, with the exception of the posts of General Secretary and Treasurer. Due to the death of the General Secretary, Isabelle de SERRE, in April 2021, this position will now be filled by Maria-Luise FESER and Deputy General Secretary Alexandra CLAVER-FEEKES. Cécile HOUDOIN will replace Maria-Luise FESER as Treasurer.
The responsibilities of the rest of the Board remain unchanged: the Chairman is Jean-Paul DOGUET, the Vice-Chairman Olga IMBERT and a second Vice-Chairman, Jean-Pierre MORIZOT.
This year we have had to deal with the continuing crisis of COVID 19 under difficult conditions, both in terms of bilateral and multilateral meetings and monthly meetings. This represents a particular challenge insofar as it is a disincentive for some members, but we must also recognise that it frees us from having to deal with the issue of finding a meeting place. On Monday 22 March 2021 we held our Annual General Meeting by videoconference, with no changes to the members of the Executive Committee and Steering Committee, who were therefore re-elected. Our monthly meeting was held on 19 April, again by videoconference, followed by others on 19 May and 21 June. On the latter day, Jean-Claude Houdoin gave a very instructive demographic review of Europe, country by country. Then came our meetings on 13 September, 18 October, 22 November and 13 December without Café Paris Europe. Fortunately, we tried a face-to-face format at Café La Parenthèse from 22 November, and we hope that the meetings will be able to continue there, even if this place is undoubtedly temporary and we don't know what the future holds in terms of illness.
In April, we were saddened to lose Isabelle de Serre, a long-standing supporter who was also an excellent General Secretary. This was painful for Eurocapitales, which was well represented at her funeral mass. And it is also a challenge to redistribute our functions within the association.
On Sunday 4 July 2021, our traditional Eurocapitales Party was held in a small group at Christine Doring's home in Morainvilliers.
In particular, the year was marked by two videoconference 'meetings' on Zoom. Firstly, on 18 September, our 21st multilateral meeting on "Confronting COVID 19: a European challenge", with two successive sessions. The first was a comparative look at European policies on COVID, and the second looked at the prospects for a Europe of health. After a welcome address by Jean-Paul Doguet, we heard contributions from Mark Patterson, Stavros Vardalas and Jean-Paul Doguet on the respective policies in Great Britain (Brexit and Covid 19), Greece and France, since the Finnish speaker withdrew at the last minute. In the afternoon, we had a long presentation by Jessica Chamba (MEF) on "Towards a European health policy", followed by Sylvain Kahn (Sciences-Po Paris) on "The challenges of a Europe of vaccines", with questions. I have to say that I found this first experience a little disappointing, partly because I hadn't yet mastered the video-seminar tool very well, particularly as regards simultaneous translation. Jessica's presentation was without doubt the most interesting and the most technically proficient.
The following month, our Paris-Dublin bilateral meeting took place on the same videoconference model, to mark the centenary of Ireland's independence, on Saturday 16 October, with the support of the Alliance Française de Dublin and in partnership with the MEI. Technically, it went better than the multilateral, partly because we had a better grasp of the webinar tool. The first part was devoted to "Two centuries of Franco-Irish friendship", while the second looked at the prospect of Irish reunification. After a welcome address by Jean-Paul DOGUET, the first part was given by Grace NEVILLE, who spoke on "The great famine and French opinion", followed by Pierre RANGER (University of Créteil), who spoke on "An Irish revolutionary in France: Maud Gonne and the nationalist international (1887-1914)", and finally Jean-Paul DOGUET, who spoke on "The difficult Franco-Irish relationship: the example of Montalembert". For the second part, entitled "Towards the reunification of Ireland", we first heard Christophe GILLISSEN, from the University of Caen-Normandie, on "French foreign policy and the unification of Ireland", followed by Pierre JOANNON (Royal Irish Academy) on "The reunification of Ireland: myth or reality? Finally, Stephen O'SHEA, Vice-Chairman of the Irish ME discussed "The new Irish reality after Brexit". The outcome of this bilateral seems to me to be more positive than that of the multilateral. Unfortunately, however, it is unlikely that we will be able to organise bilateral events for a long time to come, for the simple reason that the EMI has stopped organising its annual face-to-face meetings, which means that I can no longer make contact with EMI members in the various capitals.
DRAFT 2022 PROGRAMME
The coming year will see two, and perhaps three, deadlines. The first is the (re)creation of our website. I've noticed that contacts to find a webmaster haven't produced any results and I think we are going to have to resign ourselves, even if Antibug's quote (€2640) is expensive of course. Perhaps we can ask for other quotes from other companies, but it will be in this price range anyway. We can set up a kind of subscription, for example with donations of around €80 per person, which will make things easier.
The other deadline will be the creation of a Eurocapitales International federation, under French law with our current registered office. If all goes well, this won't cost us much, hardly more than setting up an association. We already have the articles of association, including the English translation. All we need to do is organise a constituent General Meeting. We should proceed in order and create the federation in May or June for example, after recreating our site. We would need to find premises, which could exceptionally be the MEF headquarters, and members willing to form the steering committee.
A final question concerns the 2022 multilateral meeting. I'm still counting on Helsinki, although I note that they haven't replied to my two letters. Simultaneous translation for this kind of meeting is expensive, and I don't envisage having to repeat the exercise in Paris. An alternative solution would be Athens.
