The Political Monitoring Group

I spent most of this Tuesday in preparatory meetings (with my counterpart in the Committee of the Regions, Gerhard Stahl, and with our members in the delegation) and then in a meeting of the Political Monitoring Group, a meeting that lasted most of the afternoon. This must be a rare body in interinstitutional terms. It is composed of members from both the CoR and the EESC and its remit is to oversee the workings of the cooperation agreement between the two Committees, particularly with regard to the so-called Joint Services (notably translation and logistics), where the two Committees have decided to realise considerable economies of scale by pooling their resources in a joint structure. The meeting went very well and this is in itself a tribute to all the officials in both Committees who are determined to make the Agreement work. I never tire of pointing out that this revolutionary arrangement is the way of the future.