Eurovent, the European Association of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Equipment Manufacturers, has held its 48th General Assembly in Madrid from 30 May to 1 June. The organization of the same one, that has congregated in our city to more than 60 people among congressmen and companions, has been in charge of AFEC, that in turn acted as hostess.

The event supposed the execution of three programs in parallel: the program of work, reserved in its different meetings to the delegates, the social one with the majority participation of the companions and the optional one, that passed to the completion of the official acts of the assembly, that shared assemblymen and companions.

The work programme

On Wednesday 30th, the congress activities started with the traditional meeting of the Board of Directors.

Thursday 31 was dedicated, in morning and afternoon sessions, to the work of the Environmental and Technical Commissions.

The Environmental Commission started with the presentation of the attendees, the reading of the rules on competition, which must be observed in all the meetings of the Association, and the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting held in Frankfurt.

The Action Plan for the 2007-2008 biennium was then discussed, as well as the budget for the latter year.

Subsequently, each of the heads of the different working groups:

• EEA. Energy Efficiency in Buildings (Mr. Ortiz).
• ECOLABEL. Eco-Labelling (Mr. Dieryckx)
• WEEE and RuSP. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Restrictions on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances. (Mr. Ortiz)
• PUE. Eco-design requirements for Energy-using Products. (Mr. Aloisi and Mr. Folempin)
• F-gases/Refrigerants. Regulation on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases/refrigerants (Mr. Hoogkamer)

submitted to the Commission an updated status report on the implementation or development of each of the Directives or Regulations under their responsibility, in each of the countries of the European Union.

The agenda of the meeting was completed with the analysis of the environmental database, agreeing on its publication on the web page and with a brief review of the new directives that will soon require the attention of this commission.

The Technical Commission analysed the activities carried out by the 16 Working Groups active within the association. Previously to the beginning of the meeting, the assistants were given a detailed report of these activities prepared by Mr. Becirspahic, Director of Operations of Eurovent.

The following day, Friday 1st June, the Executive Committee met early in the morning and after a short break the General Meeting took place.

The Executive Committee attended the presentation of the proposed Business Plan 2007-2009, made by Mr. Chalmet, future Operations Director. This Business Plan is especially important, given that both the General Secretary and the current Director of Operations are no longer working with the Association after many years, which makes it advisable to study a possible integral renewal of its structure and to undertake a reconsideration of its objectives and activities.

The General Meeting began by following the agenda, with the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting, corresponding to the General Assembly, held in Helsinki, and of the Extraordinary Meeting held in Paris on 7 November 2006, followed by the annual report on the activities of the Board of Directors and the Secretariat.

Subsequently, the heads of the Environmental, Marketing and Technical Committees presented the activity reports for the previous year, followed by the report on the Eurovent Certification Company, prepared by its managing director, Mr. Benoist.

Without a solution of continuity, the Business Plan was presented to the assembly and the 2006 accounts were approved. Immediately afterwards, the president, Francisco Muñoz de Leyva, gave the traditional speech about his management, which on this occasion was also a farewell speech given that his mandate ends at the end of 2007.

The next item on the agenda was the confirmation of the continuity in the exercise of the General Secretariat of Eurovent of the Belgian business organization Agoria, although the natural person who will hold the position of General Secretary, Felix Van Eyken, has changed to replace Michel Van der Horst. This nomination gave way to the new Director of Operations in the person of Mr. Chalmet who will replace Mr. Becirspahic who is retiring in January 2008.

The approval of the 2007 and 2008 budgets gave way to the election of the new president for the 2008-2009 period and the six vice-presidents. Among the candidates to the vice presidency, AFEC presented to D. Javier Fernández of Bordons that was elected jointly with other five candidates presented by so many national associations. The following table collects the result of the mentioned voting and the relation of elected people.

POSITION	NAME	ASSOCIATION	COUNTRY
President	Bowmeester, Lambert	FKL	NETHERLANDS
Vice-president	Fernández de Bordons, Javier	AFEC	SPAIN
Vice-president	Mager, George	AGORIA	BELGIUM
Vice-president	Grossi, Carlo	COAER	ITALY
Vice-president	Herten, Christian	FV ALT im VDMA	GERMANY
Vice-president	Robertsson, Goran	SWEDVENT	SWEEDEN
Vice-president	Huguet, Jean Pierre	UNICLIMA	FRANCE

With the presentation made by the Turkish delegation from the city of Istanbul, as the next venue for the General Assembly and the planning of future ones, the meeting was closed.

The social programme

An informal cocktail-dinner for delegates and accompanying persons, served on Wednesday 30th at sunset in the gardens of the Hotel Puerta de América, venue of the Assembly, followed by a flamenco show in a specialized venue, started the social program.

The following day, Thursday, the participants in the social programme visited the Museo del Prado, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales and took a brief tour of old Madrid. In the evening, together with the delegates, they attended the Gala Dinner in the Casino of Madrid, which was preceded by an aperitif, enlivened by a harpsichord and violin duo, which performed several pieces from the Baroque repertoire.

To the desserts a brief presentation of the manager of AFEC gave passage to the speech of the presidents of Eurovent and of ARI, Francisco Muñoz of Leyva and Stephen Yurek respectively. Subsequently they were delivered some plates of gratefulness by their services to two ex-presidents of the Association: Eloy de Sola and Jean Marie Ghion. In the absence of the latter, George Mager collected the plaque.

The president publicly thanked Sule Becirspahic for his dedication to Eurovent over the past years and invited him to say a few words. The President then closed the ceremony.

The optional program

On Friday afternoon, June 1, a small group of people took a guided tour of the Casa de Cervantes, the Corral de Comedias and the University of Alcalá de Henares, as part of the optional program, which was completed the next day with a full-day excursion to Toledo.

The farewell dinner in a restaurant in Madrid was the last act of the General Assembly.