Brussels, 08/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Regions (CoR) held the first plenary session of its fourth term on Wednesday and Thursday where it elected the full team of leaders and also the representatives to the Convention on the reform of the Institutions (see EUROPE of 25 January, p.17). Albert Bore (PES, Mayor of Birmingham) will be the President of the CoR until 2004, when the President of the Generalitat of Valencia, Eduardo Zaplana (EPP) will take over. The latter is currently the First Vice-President of the CoR and also part of the CoR delegation to the Convention on the reform of the Institutions. Alongside Eduardo Zaplana, the other representatives (and observers) from the Committee of the Regions to the Convention are: Jos Chabert, the outgoing President of the CoR and Minister in the government of the Region of Brussels-Capital (EPP), Patrick Dewael, Minister-President of Flanders (ELDR), Claudio Martini, President of Tuscany (PES), Manfred Dammeyer, former CoR President and Member of Parliament for the Land of Rheinland-Westphalien (PES) and Claude du Granrut, Regional Councillor for Picardy and Deputy-Mayor of Senlis (EPP).
The new Presidents of the political groups are as follows: Michel Delebarre, President of the Regional Council of Nord-Pas de Calais for the PES, Reinhold Bocklet, European Affairs Minister in Bavaria for the EPP, Kent Johansson from the region of Västra Götalands for the ELDR group, Sean O'Neachtain, Member of the Council for the County of Galway (Ireland) for the AE group. The Committee of the Regions will now have six commissions rather than eight as in the past: Regional Policy, Structural Funds and Social Cohesion, chaired by Raffaele Fitto, President of the regions of Puglia (Italy, EPP); the Economic and Social Commission, Francisco Mesquita Machado, Mayor of Braga (Portugal, PES); the Sustainable Development Commission, Wim van Gelder, Governor of the Province of Zealand (the Netherlands, EPP); the Culture and Education Commission, Henning Jensen, Mayor of Naestved (Denmark, PES); the Constitutional Affairs and European Governance Commission, Lord Tope, Member of Sutton Council (United Kingdom, ELDR); and the External Relations Commission, Christos Paleológos, Mayor of Livadia (Greece, PES).
The CoR's new Vice-Presidents are Knud Andersen (ELDR, Denmark), Simone Beissel (ELDR, Luxembourg), Kenneth Bodfish (PES, United Kingdom), Jean-Louis Joseph (PES, France), Roger Kaliff (PES, Sweden), Markku Kaupinen (ELDR, Finland), Evangelos Kouloumbis (PES, Greece), Gianfranco Lamberti (EPP, Italy), Erwin Teufel (EPP, Germany), Wim van Gelder (EPP, the Netherlands), Jean-Claude van Cauwenberghe (PES, Belgium) and Wendelin Weingartner (EPP, Germany).