Yesterday evening and most of today the enlarged Presidency (the President, two Vice-Presidents, the three Group Presidents and the Secretary General) met to discuss a number of important policy topics. They also discussed the 2013 budget drafting exercise together with the Committee’s rapporteur on the 2013 budget, Madi Sharma (United Kingdom, Employers’ Group) and the two other members of the Bugdet group’s task force mandated to help prepare a draft, in close cooperation with the administration. Today’s discussion was more about orientation and background but there is complete agreement on all sides that the Committee’s core activities and its core interests must be defended. We cannot, for example, not pay the rent (which is index-linked). We must provide our future Crpoatian members with translation into and out of Croatian, and so on. Such proposals as a 5% cut in human resources across the board make for good headlines but are disproportionately felt by smaller institutions. As I never tire of pointing out, we only have one accountant, one auditor, one doctor, one nurse. How can I cut them by 5%? As I also never cease to point out, the Committees are both already realizing important economies of scale through their joint services and additional synergies by resorting to interinstitutional cooperation wherever possible.