Brussels, 21 October 2013: Meeting of the ACA-Europe Board
On 21 October 2013, the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the European Union (ACA-Europe) held the second of its two annual Board meetings in Brussels. Secretary-General Mr Yves Kreins recapped the association's activities, and, in particular, the projects in relation to ACA-Europe's databases, working visits by judges in 2013 and the upcoming seminars to be held on 18 November 2013 in The Hague, under the aegis of the Council of State of the Netherlands, on the topic Development of administrative law in Europe: natural convergence or imposed uniformity?, and on 18 December 2013 in Paris, under the auspices of the the French presidency of ACA-Europe on the topic Soft law, legal standards and sources of law. The seminar to be held in Brussels in early 2014 was also discussed: it will focus on application of two EU directives on asylum (the Return Directive and the Employer Sanction Directive ). Finally, the meeting also included a presentation on the topic for the colloquium to be held in Paris on 16 June 2014, marking the end of the Council of State of France's presidency of ACA-Europe. The colloquium will focus on the contribution the Councils of State and supreme administrative courts belonging to the association can make against the backdrop of the major transformations under way in large sectors such as transport, telecommunications, energy and so forth, and, more specifically on the role of administrative judges in ensuring that action by the public authorities in the context of economic regulation is coherent and homogenous and complies with EU law.
During the second half of 2014, a second seminar is to be held in Brno at the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic. The President of the latter, Mr Josef Baxa (on the left in the photo), will be taking over as President of ACA-Europe when the Czech Republic assumes the association's presidency from France in 2014. The aim of the event will be to kick-start the Forum, ACA-Europe's internal communication network between judges at the different member Councils of State and supreme administrative courts.
Newsletter no. 30, which includes four contributions from the seminar held on 21 April 2013 in Parma, was handed out at the meeting. It will be sent out to all ACA-Europe members for wider dissemination.
The Board also looked at the association's budget for 2013: at the end of the financial year, it will be submitted to the Court of Audit of Belgium for approval. The budget for 2014 was also addressed: it will depend largely on the subsidy granted to ACA-Europe by the European Commission following a call for projects issued in August 2013 and to which the association responded. The funding of ACA-Europe within the framework of the European Commission's multiannual plans for the period 2014-2020 was also the subject of discussion by the Board.
The Board meeting was chaired by Mr Jean-Marc Sauvé, Vice-President of the Council of State of France and President of ACA-Europe (to the right of Mr Yves Kreins in the photo).
It also marked a changing of the guard within the association, with Mr Yves Kreins handing over to Mr Geert Debersaques, member of the Council of State of Belgium, who will be taking over as Secretary-General of ACA-Europe from 1 January 2014. Mr Debersaques will be supported by Mr Eric Thibaut, First Auditor and Head of Division of the Council of State of Belgium, who will be taking over as Deputy Secretary-General (both are shown on the right of the photo).
