This will be a short week (because yesterday was Whit Monday) but a very busy one. This afternoon the Bureau met again and took another HR decision which brings my vision of the new establishment plan one step further to completion. Nikos Alexopoulos, who has had a long and very broad career within the EESC,  was formally confirmed as Deputy Secretary General. This means I now have two deputies in whom I have complete faith and confidence and to whom I can delegate many operational powers and responsibilities that in the past have been, in my opinion, over-centralised. This will leave me more free to concentrate on strategic issues and, above all, to work more closely with the Committee’s members as they seek to flesh out the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions on participatory democracy.