Dear Members, I look forward to welcoming many of you to our Conference in Vilnius in June. It is of course not too late to join us and I would encourage you to register for the Conference if you have not already done so.

We have now successfully relocated the ECTA Office and staff to Brussels. Anne- Laure Covin, our Legal Co-ordinator, Cathy Van Vuuren and Sonia Drabbé, our administrative staff are all now working from that office. The advantages of operating from a location at the heart of Brussels are already evident. Anne-Laure has attended a number of informal and formal networking opportunities and meetings at the Commission, which have raised ECTA’s profile and strengthened the working relationships we have with key individuals.

At Alicante, we have been granted official Observer status before the Administrative Board of OHIM, one of five NGOs to be awarded this status. As reported in a recent ECTA Flash, Anne- Laure represented our Association in that capacity for the first time at the Administrative Board Meeting and Joint Meeting of the Administrative Board and the Budget Committee at OHIM from 4-5 May.

We continue to run Round Table Events, the most recent of which was a well-attended event in Germany.

Our Committees have been active in preparing and publishing a number of Position Papers. The Paper, which has received most publicity, was the Position Paper we published relating to the proposed reduction to CTM fees: "How to better balance OHIM's budget - the way forward" -The compromise solution as proposed at the last Joint Meeting of the Administrative Board and the Budget Committee of the OHIM. Other Position Papers, published on our website in the last 8 months cover the following:

- Codification of Council Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1998;
- Comments on deletion of the requirement of a basic application or registration with the office of
  origin for international registrations; deletion of the dependency clause; possibility to designate the
  country of origin as for any other country; deletion of transformation;
- Proposed changes to the Locarno classification system for industrial designs;
- Statement on business perspectives on International cooperation, enforcement education and
  internet-related issues.

We are currently working on the redesign of our website. The website is our window to the world and we feel that the view we give through that window can be considerably improved and updated.

Looking to the future, we have also set up a Project Team to look at various aspects of the Association, to determine ways in which we can improve our services to you, our members, as well as improve the efficiency of the way in which we conduct our affairs internally. We will communicate with you the initiatives we will adopt based on the recommendations which emerge from that Project Team.

Finally, it remains only for me to thank you all for your continued support to the Association. I look forward to meeting you in June. In the meantime if you have any suggestions or comments you would like to make to the Management Team and Council, please contact us directly.

Simon Reeves
President of ECTA