This morning it was my turn to co-chair (together with Gerhard Stahl) the 13th bi-monthly meeting of the Secretaries General of the European Economic and Social Committee and of the Committee of the Regions together with the Directors of their Joint Services and their Human Resource and Finance Directors. This is one part, an essential part, of the governance mechanism that makes the pioneering cooperation agreement between the two Committees work. On the agenda this morning: preparing the next meeting of the Political Monitoring Group (another part, at political level, of the governance mechanism); budgetary and financial affairs (and particularly the draft 2013 budget); human resources (both Committees have introduced tele-work and were happy to learn that this is going well); the work programmes of the logistics and translation directorates; electronic document management; and areas for further potential cooperation with the other institutions. It was a rich agenda but all went well.