First of all I think I have to express gratitude, I need to thank all of those who have worked in the bureau so far, who we are not losing. Elisabeth Dispaux-Cornil (B) we know that she is going to continue in the bureau. Mr. Kinnunen we have agreed, that our work in Europe will have certain priorities and that will mean, Mr. Kinnunen, that where ever we are you will always.get an invitation, and we will always be delighted if you would be an attendee of our events. And the same applies for our friend from Slovakia, Prof. Bencek.
And ladies and gentlemen, you will find in me someone who will always try to ensure that existing contacts will not get lost and that is a demonstration of the inner links within our community. Once again I would like to thank all of those who have taken us down this path towards the success of the ESCU. I would also like to thank Marilies Flemming because we felt that with the Austrian temperament and the charm that goes along with that, but also with the necessary degree of toughness we’ve managed to ensure, that our own group here in this wonderful house has managed to take acccount of the Senior Citizens concerns. And if we have any wishes , any ideas, any questions, we can get in touch with you, Marilies, and we are very happy that you are here with us and we will do everything to ensure that you will stay. And the same will apply, if our Austrian friends cooperate, which I am sure they will.
And I do hope that we will be able to guarantee the necessary continuity. There is something which shows what the secret of success can be. I think continuity is one very important point. What I would like to say is, whenever you can support us, please do, please tell us what we can do, please tell our new Secretary General, because I think we are flexible enough with bureau meetings with executive committee meetings, we can come to you and support you there. If an institution is there then you also get maximum press coverage, it becomes a public event. And I think that the leadership there can be invited, they can be allowed to speak and then they tend to remember what we have said to them - especially when we are talking about money. So once again thank you very much indeed to everyone. The second thing which I would like to say, friends, relates more directly to our work. I hope you will accept a letter before Christmas, where I will be thanking our Austrian colleagues and you will see this in the minutes of the 4th congress, but also I will be reporting on the work to be done next year. I realized that the burau is going to be meeting every two months and there are going to be three or four executive committee meetings, – we are going to look at this, to have this properly organised – but at least tree of them. And if we spread that out properly, and if we ensure that it is going to be effective throughout European regional terms, I think that we face there in the moment a great deal of dynamics and we have hot 15 countries here now and we will have 17, 18, 19. I do hope that we are going to be able to get the necessary degree of support down through the rangs. Because we are now a very big organisation and that is something which is therefore necessary. And since we want to continue our positive membership something which I am very proud of, because throughout Europe there is no other political senior citizens organisation which is as strong and powerful as the ESCU. And I think, as I said, we can be very proud of this.
The content of our work is so important. We have now really just thrown a stone into the water which is causing ripples, we are obviously now waiting for the echo, but I do think that the substance we have got is something that we can work on. We do have a contribution to make along these lines and that is something that we do want to link up with other activities where apropriate and that would be my personal request. Stefan Knafl and myself will be doing this in Bamberg next Saturday, this has already been mentioned, there is the Senior Citizens Union of the CSU in Bavaria, which is a wonderful region of Germany. I think if you feel that our link would be useful, then please get in touch with us. If there are meetings of regional assosiations, if you get the opportunity there to present Europe as such, to say what we do in Europe, what we can do, what our priorities are, and say what our objective is, then I think all Christian Democrats and our political allies will realise it is useful to all get together.
And
finally here I am speaking frankly: we have all our work with God’s blessing,
everything really is subject to that. And I do hope that all will find your
friends and families welcome them, pass on our best regards, I do wish you
all a very safe journey home, free of all constraints. I have heard over lunch
that it
was a good idea to meet this week, because as of Tuesday there is going to
be a general strike, and then we probably would not have been able to meet
at all. So thank goodness, whe had the right feeling there. Thankyou to Mr.
Mohaupt (A), thankyou to Marilies Flemming (MEP), thankyou to Stefan Knafl
(A) who really led us to these dates. So that was a summary.
I wish all of you a very safe journey home and I hope that we have a very successful time till our next meeting.
(Summary by using the tape recording by Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Walter PAUL)