ECCE NEWS - SPRING/SUMMER 2004

Dear friends and colleagues,

We have had a very busy schedule in May and well organized meetings in Moscow for which I wish to congratulate and thank our Russian colleagues. Afterwards we have had a relaxing summer - I hope you also enjoyed some free time. Now it is time to go back to work.

Civil Engineering work belongs to the service sector of the society. The main idea should be to satisfy in the best, environmentally-friendly manner the needs of the citizens – needs for pleasant living, safe and rapid transportation, good business and working environment and good drinking water and waste management etc. It is important that we use in this service all the existing knowledge – it is important to update our knowledge all the time during our working life. Are we sure that we as civil engineers make use of our civil engineering knowledge when we act? In business and in public positions it is important to behave according to our accepted ECCE ethical rules, published some years ago. We should try to make our products like houses so that their service life is longer and thus take care of sustainability.

Health and safety factors are also important. We must protect our workers, minimize accident possibilities and ensure healthy working conditions. Health and safety is one important area in this year in Europe and ECCE wishes to promote these goals: we will treat this during our next meeting.

In October ECCE will co-operate with European architects ACE and consultants EFCA arranging a seminar in Brussels on Public Procurement. We want to promote correct implementation of the new Directive in European countries and raise some important concerns in that area.  We will inform you about the event quite soon.

During our next meeting in Zagreb we have important matters to discuss and decide for example, whether  we wish to create a WCCE, our input to health and safety, an initiative for making service life of structures longer, ETP , EU 7FP in R&D among others. I hope to see you all there.

With warmest regards,

                                   

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