NEW PRESIDENT OF EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY CENTRES (EANPC) HAS BEEN ELECTED

The election for presidency was on the agenda of European Association of National Productivity Centres (EANPC) at the Board Meeting of EANPC held in Bilbao Spain on 3 April 2009.  Presidency of EANPC has been held by Peter Rehnström for nearly 10 years. International Projects Director of German Centre for Productivity and Innovation (RKW) Mr. Wolfgang Schroeter – RKW has been one of the Partners of Euroductivity Project coordinated by MPM - has been unanimously elected as the President for 2 years. Representatives from MPM also attended to the meeting; Member of the Board Ramazan Yıldırım, Secretary General and Member of the Board Kerim Ünal, Head of International Relations Department Dilek Özdemir and expert İlknur Yavuz.

It was acknowledged beforehand that Peter Rehnström who would hand over his duty to Wolfgang Schröeter on May 1 2009 would retire both from his duty at Finnish Work Environment Fund and EANPC. MPM has been the Deputy President of EANPC for a while and in accordance with the new arrangements in the regulations of ENPC, MPM will continue its duty of Deputy Presidency for two more years. According to the new status of EANPC, a new executive body that constitutes of ex President, President, Deputy President and Secretary General was formed. The members of the executive body would meet at least twice a year and work actively on the issues of new memberships, planning and conducting new projects, annual plans, budget, evaluation of  the activities and work of Secretary General.

A meeting was also organized with European Agency for Safety and Health at Work   (EU-OSHA), the Centre of which was also located in Bilbao and presentations were made for EANPC members on the problems in health and security at work in many countries including Türkiye and exchange of opinion was made. Moreover, possibility of collaboration between EANPC and this organization was discussed by the participants and a common activity was decided to be conducted with this organization.   The participation of EANPC in the strategic planning of EU-OSHA that will continue till 2012 will be evaluated in the upcoming days.

The details of 16th World Productivity Congress and 2010 European Productivity Conference have also been discussed at the EANPC Board Meeting. The final decision on the kind of activities to be carried out and what the current conditions would be, will be given at the World Confederation of Productivity Science (WCPS) meeting to be held in Montreal Canada in the last week of April.  The parties of the Congress, namely EANPC and MPM have mutual understanding in the possibility of low attendance due to global crisis and thus, they agreed to discuss the issue at the WCPS meeting.

In addition, the decision to develop relations with the European Productivity Centres and particularly with the centres in Asia was also given. In line with this decision MPM has been assigned to get into contact with Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) as the deputy president representing EANPC, and develop the relations between EANPC and APO.