Copanello, 19/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Regions' bureau decided on Tuesday to keep Vincenzo Falcone at his post of provisional secretary general for the Committee and to postpone the final decision until its next meeting in Brussels on 8 October.
The bureau held an ordinary session yesterday in Copanello in Calabria (Italy) and had changed its agenda at the last moment to take into account the ruling of the Court of First Instance which, on Tuesday, had cancelled Vincenzo Falcone's appointment on 13 June 2000 as the organisation's secretary general (see EUROPE of 18 September, p.17). After an in camera session lasting half an hour, when divergent points of views are sometimes expressed, members of the bureau finally came down in favour of the proposal put forward by the chairman, Albert Bore - to take note of the CFI ruling, to keep Vincenzo Falcone as the Committee's secretary general, albeit provisionally, and to postpone the final decisions of the bureau until 8 October. Aolbert Bore said the decision is probably not satisfactory but that there was no alternative. They had just 24 hours between the decision and the meeting, he told EUROPE after the meeting. "We have taken legal advice from the Committee of the Regions and from outside. All were quite formal ..