Dear members, colleagues, friends and partners of CESI,

As the summer comes to an end, we are carefully, yet determinedly, striving back to work in our offices. As of September, all the colleagues of the CESI-Secretariat will be asked to work two days per week in the office, and, provided the epidemiological situation allows it, three days as of January 2022.

We all experienced in the past 18 months a shift of our ways to work and to cooperate, and I believe that, altogether, we managed well. Now we must find the best way of how to pursue from where we are.

The first events planned shall remain pure online meetings – for instance the expert commissions ‘Defence’, ‘Health’ and ‘Public Administrations’, the commissions ‘Employment and Social Affairs’ and ‘Women’s Rights and Gender Equality’, as well as our working groups on the ‘Future of Work’ and on the ‘Implementation of the Pillar of Social Rights’ in September or October.

Gradually, if the epidemiological situation allows it, we are aiming at moving to mixed ‘physical’ or fully ‘in situ’ events thereafter. For instance, our conference ‘A Strong Public Service Agenda’, which will take place on the 5^th of October, is planned as a mixed event. Our Board meeting and our ‘Winter Days’ however, foreseen for the 2-3 December, shall, if possible, then be fully physical in Brussels.

The same applies to the activities of CESI Youth: Whereas the workshop of the CESI Youth at the European Youth Event (EYE) of the European Parliament in October will take place online, the CESI Youth Congress in December will host young delegates in our conference room in Brussels – once again, should the Covid-19 situation allow it.

At the same time, we will continue to encourage our commissions and expert commissions to launch own campaigns, events, or other projects. We very much welcome that, in this sense, the Expert Commission ‘Defence’ will organise a so-called ‘European Defence Round Table’ on September 17, that the Expert Commission ‘Public Administrations’ has initiated a campaign for a ‘European Public Service Agenda’, and that the Expert Commission ‘Post & Telecommunications’ will host a conference in Vienna on December 14 on the impact of Cofivid-19 on the sector. Altogether, these are very promising developments, and of course, everyone can count on the dedicated support from our Secretariat.

Meanwhile, our Academy projects ‘PULSER’ on the European Pillar of Social Rights, ‘DiWork’ on digitalisation processes in employment and ‘WeEP’ on communicating Europe to our members will continue to run throughout autumn, providing many good opportunities for ‘in situ’ or online encounters.

I said this repeatedly in the past (and certainly even more often during the pandemic): Our success depends on us, on the ways we cooperate, on the level of confidence we put in each other, and not least on our mutual trust.

Since direct contacts among ourselves have been hampered for now almost 18 months, this ‘human factor’ had to find its way through different tools and channels, mainly through digital meetings. Today, I am very grateful to express my impression that this cooperation, trust and confidence appear to have remained unbroken – maybe the ties are even stronger than before.

All of this would not have been possible without your help, and I would therefore like to extend my sincerest thanks to all those of you who have actively participated in CESI’s work especially in these difficult times: the member organisations, the mandate holders and, last but not least, the staff at the General Secretariat.