Most of today was taken up with two coordination meetings, one at administrative and one at political level. The administrative meeting was the usual Monday morning Directors’ meeting. The afternoon meeting, though, was a less routine affair. The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions share several services, including translation and logistics. The simple logic is to realise economies of scale. A framework cooperation agreement sets out the rules of the game. A coordination committee meets regularly at high administrative level, but the general working of the agreement is overseen at political level by a political monitoring group (PMG) composed of members of both Committees. It was this political monitoring group that met this afternoon. I believe that the cooperation agreement between the two Committees is a revolutionary and pioneering arrangement. It is not always easy to manage, but it does work and, on the whole, work well. Proof of this came with this afternoon’s PMG meeting, which went smoothly and ended with a round of applause.