I spent most of the day in a meeting room in a hotel in Dilbeek (a Brussels suburb), where I had taken my directors for a seminar. There were two points on the agenda: my ‘vision’; and my plans to re-organise the EESC’s establishment plan (such plans are referred to universally throughout the EU institutions as ‘organigrammes’, the French administrative term). The idea of such seminars (and normally they’d be residential) is to take people away from their PCs and offices, though there’s no escaping the mobile phone and the PDA. The meeting went well. I have inherited an administration rich in talent and good intentions. The challenge is to put all of that talent and those intentions at the service of the members in as effective a way as possible. Re-jigging establishment plans isn’t enough, of course, but a rationalisation of existing structures should help. I’m determined to devolve and to delegate and, hopefully, to energise what we like to call, in best franglais, the ‘hierarchy’. As to the vision, it’s a simple one; I will measure my success by how well our members and administration feel. If they are happy and working well together in a spirit of mutual respect and confidence then all the rest – the Committee’s reputation, communicating its opinions, etc – will surely flow.