The 11th meeting of the ECO Council was held last 3-4 December in Copenhagen, chaired by Norway.
The Council approved the recommendation from the hiring panel (in which Portugal participated) concerning appointment of the next ECO director. Per Christensen of Denmark will assume that position as from 1 April 2015, replacing the current director, Mark Thomas of the United Kingdom, who has been in office since 1 January 2007. The director’s contract is for four years, extendable for 2+2 years.
The hiring panel (comprising the Council’s chair and vice-chair, the council members from Germany and Switzerland and a consultant from Mercuri Urval) selected six from the total of eleven candidates for interview, and unanimously decided to recommend one single candidate for appointment by the Council.
The Council approved the final version of the Office’s budget for 2015 and took note of the 2016-2017 Financial Plan, already subject to preliminary analysis in the spring Council. As has occurred since 2003, the contribution unit (CU) remains unchanged. This budget envisages that spending will be 1.4 million Danish kroner (DKK) lower than in the current year, which particularly reflects the lower rent to be paid for the ECO’s new offices, well located in the centre of the capital, though slightly smaller.
Following a recommendation by the current director, the Council members approved increasing the ECO’s legal retirement age from 65 to 70 years to bring it into line with Danish law, though reservations were put forward by Portugal and Ireland. To that end and also with a view to implementing other editorial updates, the Staff Rules and Internal Instructions were amended.
The Council approved membership of the Czech Republic in the ECO Convention, with immediate effects. It also approved Lithuania’s membership, although that administration must first go through the proper formalities, namely depositing its membership instrument with the Convention’s depositary, the Danish Foreign Ministry. The two new members will pay one CU; appendix A of the ECO Convention should be amended accordingly. Information provided by the director indicates that because they are European Union (EU) members, Slovenia and Malta will be the next states contacted about joining the ECO.
The Council discussed and approved the final version of the ECO working programme for 2015, which is based on the 2014 working programme, executed by seven experts and five administrative personnel (two of whom work at 80 percent). The main changes concern additional support for the Conference Preparatory Group (CPG) due to the upcoming 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) and the Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM-15-2), as well as rescheduling the time required, owing to the move from the Office’s premises in May.
A decision was made to extend the working contract of the Office’s two experts: final extension for two more years of the contract of Stella Lyubchenko of Russia until the end of May 2017, and additional final extension for six more months of the contract of Jean-Philippe Kermoal (France) until the end of January 2016.
The Council chair recalled that his first term ends in December and that he will not be a candidate again; he is only available to prolong his term for one more Council meeting, until May 2015, which will coincide with the new director taking office. He queried whether Portugal, which currently holds the vice-chair, intends to be a candidate; if so, this should be formalised up to one month before the spring Council.
The next meeting was scheduled for 6-7 May 2015 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, at the invitation of the Swiss administration.
