Commission appoints new Secretary-General and reshuffles its senior management
The European Commission has decided to appoint Alexander Italianer as new Secretary-General following Catherine Day‘s decision to retire from active service as of 1 September 2015.
The Commission has also decided to reshuffle its senior management team and a significant number of current senior managers will be taking on new responsibilities. Following the re-organisation of the Commission in November 2014, this pronouncement is a further step in gearing the Commission towards effective delivery. It concludes an inclusive process set in motion by the President in March 2015.
Presenting its decision, President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “I want to wholeheartedly thank Catherine Day for her commitment and skilful steer of our administration for so many years. She played a crucial role in helping this new Commission to start at full speed. I am sure our new Secretary-General, Alexander Italianer, will build on her tremendous success. We have a strong team in place to deliver on Europe’s big priorities. At the same time, there are still too few women among our senior managers. It remains my firm intention to change that during my mandate”.
Kristalina Georgieva, Vice-President in charge of Human Resources and Budget, said: “This is a team of talented and experienced professionals, who will work closely with the political leaders to deliver on the priorities of the Juncker Commission – the right people in the right place, at the right time. And I am strongly committed to bring the share of female managers to 40% by the end of this mandate.”
This decision involves two types of moves among the current senior management team of 33
Directors-General, 36 Deputy Directors-General and 4 Hors Classe Advisers.
Tropenmuseum, a global view of the 1960s
The Sixties – A Worldwide Happening exhibition can be seen from 16 October 2015 to 13 March 2016.
On 16 October The Sixties – A Worldwide Happening exhibition opens in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. The exhibition offers a global view of the 1960s, an era when globalization as we know it first appeared. Visitors will be surprised by the trans-border connections which have never been presented in this way before.
This year it is precisely 50 years ago that the Provo movement was founded in the Netherlands. But the significance of the exciting sixties went far beyond the movements in the Netherlands. All round the world it was a period of enormous social, political and cultural impact. In fashion, music, design and upbringing, signs of the extensive changes that were instigated in the sixties are still evident.
Today’s world builds on the icons of yesterday
The Sixties – A Worldwide Happening is an exhibition which makes the 1960s feel amazingly close and recognizable because today’s world builds on the icons of yesterday. Arranged around several themes characteristic of the era, the exhibition shows how changes worldwide were expressed in graphic design, fashion, music, architecture, photography and media.
You can admire many legendary items, such as some of Jimi Hendrix’s clothes, Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dress, space-look fashion by Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne, and one of Mary Quant’s first miniskirts. There’s also work by the world-famous photographers Richard Avedon, Leonard Freed, James Barnor and Malick Sidibé. Smells, images and typically sixties design take visitors back in time.
Cultural exchange
Owing to the growing role of the media more and more people have an impression of the wider world, resulting in influence and exchange. The Black Power Movement in the United States, for example, was inspired by the sense of pride and self-determination that prevailed in recently independent African countries.
Thousands of young people travelled from Amsterdam to India and Afghanistan following the so-called hippie trail. The originally British miniskirt was also a fashion ideal in Thailand and Nigeria. And vice versa, Eastern cultures were a source of inspiration to British and French fashion designers.
Sculptures by Joan Miró in the Rijksmuseum Gardens
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will exhibit this summer over 20 sculptures from international museums and private collections by Spanish artist Joan Miró (1893-1983). The exhibition will be open to the public until October 11 2015. This is the third in a series of five open air exhibits at the gardens of the Rijksmuseum, which previously held exhibitions by Henry Moore and Alexander Calder. The Miró works are surrounded by original formal garden styles, historical building fragments, sculptures and ponds. The opening of the exhibition took place on June 19. The exhibition will run until October 11. More information can be found at the website of the Rijksmuseum. Another Miró exhibition will take place in The Netherlands this year. The Cobra Museum of Amstelveen will present “Miró and Cobra. The Joy of Experiment”, focused on Miró´s influence on Cobra Group members. It will display 80 works by Miró and 40 by different artists related to the Cobra Group. The exhibition will run from October 9 to January 31. It will be the most important Miró exhibition in the Netherlands in the last 60 years.
The Danish approach to social sustainability: ROCKWOOL takes a major leap forward
On behalf of the Danish company ROCKWOOL B.V. the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark H. E. Ole Emil Moesby hosted a huge event in connection with the presentation of their updated CSR Report (Corporate Social Responsibility) containing interesting tools for sustainability in the building sector in the future.
Rebuilding our future, a manifesto on Social Sustainability and the ‘AQSI’, a tool that provides insight into the social performance of a building, were both launched by ROCKWOOL on June 30, 2015, at the Danish Embassy in The Hague. Several Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) experts including Mark Frequin, Director General of Housing and Construction at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, were on hand to share their views on society’s necessary transition towards a sustainable and circular economy, a process which is seeing ever-more attention being given to social sustainability.
The resilient society: what does tomorrow’s society look like? What can be done differently in the transition to a circular economy? Accounting for environmental and social impact, how are we going to facilitate the change? These questions characterised the theme of the conference and walking dinner hosted by H. E. Ole Moesby, Ambassador of Denmark.
Present as speakers:
Prof Dr. Anike van Hat, Professor of Sustainable Building & Development at Nyenrode Business University, and Professor of Sustainable Housing Transformation at Delf University of Technology.
H.R.H. Prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parme, Director – Institute for Sustainable Innovation & Development.
Hannle Stappers, Director Public-Affairs Benelux ROCKWOOL Benelux
The 175 participants represent the following sectors:
• Politicians (European, national, regional)
• Insurance companies
• Financial sector
• Consumer organizations
• Industrial associations
• Key customers (sectors: engineering, building, agri, automotive, (process) industry)
• Knowledge institutes
• CSR foundations (NL, BE, DK, EU)
• Pension Funds
• NGOs
“CSR is defined as the integration of social and environmental considerations throughout your company, and it says everything about the long-term competitiveness of your company,” according to Danish Ambassador Ole Emil Moesby who opened the meeting at the Danish Embassy in The Hague. The ambassador continued: “Denmark is one of the frontrunners in the fields of CSR and social sustainability and ROCKWOOL, as a Benelux company, is also taking this position based on the principles of sharing value and creating a win-win situation. It’s about solutions for the building sector and a strategy that benefits both the company and society at large. But that’s not something a company can do all by itself. This is a challenge you have to undertake together with the stakeholders.”
CSR report
After these opening words, Hannie Stappers, Public Affairs Director at ROCKWOOL, presented the second CSR report to Willem Lageweg, Managing Director at MVO Nederland and Sabine Denis, Managing Director of The Shift, the Belgian sustainability network. Stappers pointed out: “In our CSR report we have embarked on a new path. It is about value creation and true social impact. An important conclusion is that the value of ‘the human capital’ in a building is greatly underestimated. The quality of a building still tends to be determined by lowest price considerations, instead of by the performance of the eventual users in a building. We don’t have any idea about the costs associated with, for example, employees performing less well or students’ results being negatively affected by poor acoustics or by a poor climate inside a building. More attention also needs to be paid to the maintenance costs of a building and the circular economy where products are recycled, upcycled and reused.”
When drawing up the report, the views of the stakeholders as regards to future trends were also taken into consideration. A recent questionnaire among stakeholders revealed three main trends: a ‘Need for a resilient society’, the ‘Transition to a circular economy’, and ‘Accounting for environmental and social impact’. To effectively support their stakeholders during the transition to more sustainability, ROCKWOOL has detailed these trends in its CSR report, together with best practices and tools.
A word on AQSI
Director General of Housing and Construction at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, and Erwin Prins, Managing Director ROCKWOOL Benelux, together launched the Manifesto on Social Sustainability. This manifesto, which was signed by a large number of stakeholders – including MVO Nederland, DGBC, Innovatiecentrum Duurzaam Bouwen, GPR Gebouw, VACPunt Wonen and Slim Bouwen – commits its participants to make an effort to make social sustainability measurable and open to debate.
ROCKWOOL then introduced the ‘AQSI’ tool. To create this, the company took the initiative to translate the European Standard EN 16309 ‘Sustainability of construction works assessment of social performance of buildings. Calculation methodology’ into a practical tool, called AQSI (Assessing and Qualifying on Social Impact of buildings), that can support stakeholders such as architects, developers, insurance companies, investors and pension funds in considering the social performance of a building. The ambition is that this ‘AQSI’ tool will be integrated with sustainability instruments in order to support, assess and qualify the true and transparent performance of buildings.
Harm Valk, Senior Advisor of the Nieman Groep, further explained the launch of AQSI at the end of the meeting: “We build for people and then it is important that social sustainability can be made measurable. This tool visualizes the social qualities of a building that are not normally measured. A building must feel safe and comfortable to fulfil expectations. That’s why the owners of buildings should become more aware of their social performance. For me, true sustainability in the built environment is all about the impact on the end user.”
A word on AQSI
Director General of Housing and Construction at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, and Erwin Prins, Managing Director ROCKWOOL Benelux, together launched the Manifesto on Social Sustainability. This manifesto, which was signed by a large number of stakeholders – including MVO Nederland, DGBC, Innovatiecentrum Duurzaam Bouwen, GPR Gebouw, VACPunt Wonen and Slim Bouwen – commits its participants to make an effort to make social sustainability measurable and open to debate.
ROCKWOOL then introduced the ‘AQSI’ tool. To create this, the company took the initiative to translate the European Standard EN 16309 ‘Sustainability of construction works assessment of social performance of buildings. Calculation methodology’ into a practical tool, called AQSI (Assessing and Qualifying on Social Impact of buildings), that can support stakeholders such as architects, developers, insurance companies, investors and pension funds in considering the social performance of a building. The ambition is that this ‘AQSI’ tool will be integrated with sustainability instruments in order to support, assess and qualify the true and transparent performance of buildings.
Harm Valk, Senior Advisor of the Nieman Groep, further explained the launch of AQSI at the end of the meeting: “We build for people and then it is important that social sustainability can be made measurable. This tool visualizes the social qualities of a building that are not normally measured. A building must feel safe and comfortable to fulfil expectations. That’s why the owners of buildings should become more aware of their social performance. For me, true sustainability in the built environment is all about the impact on the end user.”
Cinco de Julio, Venezuela Independence Day
By Roy Lie A Tjam.
Celebration of the 204th Anniversary of the Independence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hosted by H. E. Ms. Haifa Aissami Madah, Ambassador.
For a photo-album on Venezuela National Day, please open the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121611753@N07/sets/72157655506364952
The reception at World hotel Bel Air on July 3rd in celebration of Venezuela was an enormous success. Ambassador Haifa Aissami Madah cordially welcomed the many colleagues and friends of Venezuela who came to congratulate her on this memorable day.
The Ambassador delivered a speech in which she evoked the centuries-old relationship between her nation and the Netherlands, and recalled visits by His Royal Highness King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima as well as visits by (former) Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Frank Timmermans.
The Venezuelan Government is preparing to establish of a new permanent mission in The Hague which will deal with matters pertaining to the ICC, OPCW, multi policy and a range of other areas. The mission will be directed by Mr. Jose Angel Bucarello, alternate Ambassador and Chargé d’affaires
The Independence Day reception was concluded with a typical Venezuelan buffet, music and dance.
The reception at World hotel Bel Air on July 3rd in celebration of Venezuela was an enormous success. Ambassador Haifa Aissami Madah cordially welcomed the many colleagues and friends of Venezuela who came to congratulate her on this memorable day.
The Ambassador delivered a speech in which she evoked the centuries-old relationship between her nation and the Netherlands, and recalled visits by His Royal Highness King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima as well as visits by (former) Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Frank Timmermans.
The Venezuelan Government is preparing to establish of a new permanent mission in The Hague which will deal with matters pertaining to the ICC, OPCW, multi policy and a range of other areas. The mission will be directed by Mr. Jose Angel Bucarello, alternate Ambassador and Chargé d’affaires
The Independence Day reception was concluded with a typical Venezuelan buffet, music and dance.
New venue for Alsatian/Saarlandic EU representations opened
By Baron Henri Estramant.
Thursday, 2 July 2015: The joint venue for the representations to the EU of the Alsace region (France) and the Saarland (Germany’s smallest Bundesland) were ceremoniously opened at Rue de Luxembourg 15, 1000 Brussels, by the President of the Regional Council of Alsace, M Philippe Richert and the Saarlandic Minister-President Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. The venue houses already the representations of Alsace, the Saarland and the Bureau Alsace Europe, albeit it is expected that a representation for the French region Lorraine-Champagne Ardenne shall also move in soon.
Amongst the numerous personalities attending the event were the Permanent Representative of France to the EU, HE Ambassador Pierre Sellal, French ambassador to Belgium, HE M Bernard Valero, Jean-Pierre Masseret, President of the Lorraine Region, Roland Daverdon, Vice-President of the Regional Council of Champagne-Ardenne or Herr Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.
The edifice on Rue du Luxembourg 15 has a surface of a bit more than 750 m² distributed in four floors, and twelve working areas. It was purchased to a cost of 1,6 M€ by the Alsace region which may let out some facilities. Back in 1990 when the Bureau Alsace Europe opened it was the very first representation of a French region in Brussels, by now, all French regions possess a representative office either individually or in groups. Their main mission is to lobby the interests of their respective regions vis-à-vis EU institutions.
The Alsatian representation is headed by Director Cédric Virciglio, whereas the Saarlandic one by Herr Stefan Feiler. In the Benelux countries the German ambassador to The Netherlands, HE Herr Franz Josef Kremp, hails from the Saarland (Neunkirchen).
For more information:
Representation of the Saarland to the EU: www.saarland.de/1896.htm
Office of Alsace to the EU: www.bureau-alsace.eu/en/home_en/
Permanent Represenation of France to the EU: www.rpfrance.eu/
Top Spas for Diplomats
A walk away from the famous Peace Palace, off the busy Java street, discreetly tucked away in Alexanderplein lies ASPA, a one- stop holistic boutique dedicated to personal grooming and wellbeing. Its focus: effective service and personal attention.
Whether it is a simple beauty treatment, elaborate anti-aging facial, hair styling, massage or overall wellbeing ASPA’s international multilingual staff will cater to all your specific needs.
ASPA’s passion is using 100% natural products in all its treatments. It uses aromatherapy product range by Aromatherapy Associates, known for its therapeutic, healing and balancing effect. Proud to use By Terry make up, Jane Iredale mineral make up, Lycon wax, Shellac and Vinylux.
Wellbeing Studio@ASPA is a discrete intimate space for the practice of yoga and Pilates and massage therapy.
ASPA is open seven days a week and will work around your schedule.
For more information please visit www.aspadirect.com
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/aspadirect
For appointments call:
Tel: 31 070 345 0215
Cell: 31 065 113 7656
ICC launches Facebook campaign
ICC launches #justicematters Facebook campaign and Outreach blog to commemorate 17 July, the Day of International Criminal Justice.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is launching a new two-weeks #justicematters social media campaign on Facebook from 6 to 17 July, the Day of International Criminal Justice, inviting submissions on why #justicematters to you. At the same time, the ICC is launching a new Outreach blog to share stories from ICC staff working directly with communities affected by crimes.
Facebook campaign
The Court invites you to fill in a #justicematters poster, with a word or phrase to describe why #justicematters to you. Take selfies, or make vines or videos, and post it on our Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/17JulyJusticeMatters/710469159099648?fref=ts)
Remember to tell us where you are from and we will add you to our #justicematters world map.
Blog
Follow our new Outreach blog (https://www.tumblr.com/search/iccoutreach) launching in the lead-up to 17 July, and hear stories from ICC staff working directly with communities affected by crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Contributing writers engage grassroots communities to inform them about victims’ rights, explain judicial proceedings, answer questions, address concerns, and foster realistic expectations about the Court’s work.
Embassy Art Exhibition: Embassies and artists in Wassenaar.
On the picture Titus Bovenberg’s art.
Diplomat Magazine and Art Gallery Patries van Dorst are together launching a new initiative for the benefit of embassies, art and artists. In October 2015, the very first edition of the Embassy Art Exhibition will be held at the beautiful estate of Kasteel de Wittenburg, Wassenaar.
In what will become an annual event, embassies will exhibit the finest art from their respective countries in the Art Gallery Patries van Dorst over a four-week period. A “vernissage” reception will take place each Wednesday to be co-hosted by the embassies of the exhibiting artists. Exhibitions will begin on October 14th and will run until November 10th.
Expats from the country of each embassy will be invited to enjoy the exhibition, as will The Hague’s diplomatic community and the wider Dutch public. Diplomat Magazine and Art Gallery Patries van Dorst will promote this event extensively to a very broad audience including expats, diplomats, state officials, the national press and the wider public.
Galerie Patries van Dorst is an art gallery displaying and promoting contemporary art from both Dutch and international artists. It is set in the beautiful location of the coach house on the estate of Kasteel de Wittenburg, Wassenaar.
“It is overwhelming to receive so many enthusiastic reactions and confirmations regarding our invitation to join the first edition of the Embassy Art Exhibition from embassies” declared Carel Reisch, owner of the gallery.
This exciting joint initiative between Diplomat Magazine and Patries van Dorst is set to become an unmissable event on the diplomatic calendar for discerning residents of and visitors to The Hague.
Galerie Patries van Dorst is an art gallery displaying and promoting contemporary art from both Dutch and international artists. It is set in the beautiful location of the coach house on the estate of Kasteel de Wittenburg, Wassenaar.
“It is overwhelming to receive so many enthusiastic reactions and confirmations regarding our invitation to join the first edition of the Embassy Art Exhibition from embassies” declared Carel Reisch, owner of the gallery.
This exciting joint initiative between Diplomat Magazine and Patries van Dorst is set to become an unmissable event on the diplomatic calendar for discerning residents of and visitors to The Hague.
Dubai Holding appoints new Vice-chairman and CEO
By Christoph Haebler and Baron Henri Estramant.
Dubai Holding, the investment vehicle of the Emirate of Dubai, UAE, has promoted two management members to the roles of managing director and chief executive. Namely incumbent CEO Ahmed Bin Byat has been promoted to vice-chairman and managing director, according to a statement by Dubai Holding. Byat holds several other positions in the Emirate of Dubai, including chairman of telecoms provider du and director general of Dubai Technology and the Media Free Zone Authority.
Chief Operating Officer Fadel bin Abdulbaqi Al Ali is appointed to the position of CEO. Al Ali is also chairman of the board at the investment firm Dubai International Capital, is a board member of du, the Dubai Financial Services Authority, Emaar Properties as well as hotel operator Jumeirah Group.
Dubai Holding assets are valued at $35.39 billion according to its own estimations. Among companies owned by Dubai Holding are Delvaux and Flamant ( Belgium).
For more information
Dubai Holding:
http://dubaiholding.com/about-dubai-holding/management
Fadel bin Abdulbaqi Al Ali: http://www.jumeirah.com/en/jumeirah-group/about-jumeirah-group/board-of-directors/fadel-abdulbaqi-al-ali1/
Dubai International Capital: www.dubaiic.com/
Telecom Du: www.du.ae/