19/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - An error occurred on page 16 of our bulletin No. 8536 of 6 September. The first line of the article on investment should read: "UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) has presented its annual report on investment …".

The decision of the Court has taken us back to the situation of the past. That of before the appointment of the Secretary General in June 200. At that time Vincenzo Falcone was a civil servant (grade A2) performing the functions of the Secretary General. "The interested party did not want to continue working in this job and explained this to committee members. But we asked him to remain until 8 October, the date of our next bureau meeting", continued Albert Bore. "To hold this bureau meeting, ensure that at least the Committee carried out a minimum of its work, the Secretary General was needed. On 8 October Vincenzo Falcone will leave his job. We will then proceed to the appointment of someone else and launch a recruitment procedure for a new Secretary General. the three weeks leading up to 8 October will allow us to prepare these decision in an atmostphere of total calm". A practical reason also led to this decision: the bureau did not have quorum.

Union syndicale in a press statement signed by Alan Hick, its President reacted to this decision of “reinstalling the ex-Secretary General, Mr Falcone as Director A2. This without the post being vacant, despite the fact that Mr Falcone had resigned as an A2 civil servant during his appointment as Secretary General. His resignations was also acted on by former CdR President, Jos Chabert. “Union syndicale, which had supported the appeal of the paintive Spyridon de Athanassiors Pappas at the court”, subsequently considered that the decision taken by the bureau of the Committee of the Regions was still unsatisfactory and doubtful legally. It is more damaging in a budgetary sense just when the Committee of the Regions is undergoing a financial investigation by OLAF (European anti-fraud office).