Before...

Back to work this morning (well, all right, I admit it; I came in over the weekend to clear my desk) and it felt, in all honesty, like getting into a modern, efficient car; the machinery is there, and it works well. Colleagues were rested and refreshed and, despite the grim, grey, wet, cold weather outside, there was an afterglow of summer sun in the corridors and the meeting rooms. Most reassuringly, the ceiling crisis that I described in my 9 August post has been managed and resolved with exemplary professionalism. Thinking about it, I see a number of reasons as to why what could have been a messy and prolonged affair was handled so well. The first was the existence of a good Business Continuity Plan (something that both I and my counterpart in the Committee of the Regions, Gerhard Stahl, have been working to establish). The second was the presence in Brussels of an excellent Director and his team and other colleagues able to implement the Plan and negotiate with the many different construction companies, insurance companies, etc involved with good will and efficiency. The third was the mutual confidence of the two Committees and of their Secretaries General (buildings and logistics are something our two institutions share) and, thanks to modern technology, the constant accessibility and availability of both SGs when their authorisation or direction was required. If you were to walk into the building today, you could hardly notice that many false ceilings in the meeting rooms elsewhere had been checked and, where necessary, repaired. I think the administrations of both Committees should give themselves a warm pat on the back.