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As mentioned above, the third speaker was our departing CIBA President, Chris Koufaris. He started by giving an overview of the Cyprus-EU pathway 2002-2007, which period coincides with his presidency over our association. With Chris Koufaris navigating, we saw a continuous number of important changes unfolding: the tax harmonization process, the signing of the EU accession treaty in Athens in 2003, the actual accession in 2004, joining the EMU in 2005, the new immigration laws : the simplification procedures for third country national staff of international business companies, the long term resident permit, the free movement of EU citizens and their third country national family members And we should not forget our own transformation: from COEA to CIBA, the change of our Memorandum and Articles of Association, the move of our offices from Nicosia to Limassol. |
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Chris Koufaris was an excellent president, a manager with a vision. He leaves to his successor an association that is well structured, financially and logistically, and ready to face the challenges of an international business sector operating and expanding within a new environment fenced off by European Union directives and regulations. We, the staff and the executive committee of CIBA and its members have to thank him for this. And we, of course, continue to count on him as a member of the CIBA executive committee, a member of the board of directors of the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency and of the Limassol Chamber of Commerce and Industry. |
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A New President |
Since Chris KOUFARIS had announced that after 5 years of service as President of CIBA, which he had thoroughly enjoyed, he would like to step down and hand over the chair to a new President and in line with the relevant clauses of our Memorandum and Articles of Association the new executive committee met on Monday 25 June 2007 to elect a new president. Mr. Bernt GIENSKEY was unanimously proposed and has accepted to preside over CIBA for the next 3 years. Bernt GIENSKEY is a German national, living in Cyprus since 1978 and married for 26 years to Zena. He attended school in Berlin and graduated as a Master Mariner at the Nautical College in Hamburg . He has been active in the shipping industry during his entire career and since September 2003 he is the Managing Director of IC Shipmanagement Ltd. in Limassol. ( www.icshipmanagementltd.com ). He is a member of our executive committee since January 2006. We are convinced that Bernt has the personality, the experience and the skills to lead our association to further growth, expansion and success |
During the same executive committee meeting the following were elected as Vice-Presidents of our association for the next three years: Ronny Verhoeven (Belorient Food Products Ltd.), and Philippos Antoniades (Chemikalien Seetransport Cyprus Ltd.) The other members of the executive committee are: Chris Koufaris (Kardex Systems Ltd.) – Past President Mehran Eftekhar (Nest Investments Holdings Ltd.) – Past President Alexei Kondratiev (Association of Russian Businessmen in Cyprus ) Andreas Andreou (Columbia Shipmanagement Ltd.) Marios Anastasiou (Federal Bank of the Middle-East Ltd.) Peter Huxley (Barclays Bank CIBU Plc) Spyros Christodoulides (Amdocs Development Ltd.) |
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David James (Moody's Investors Service Cyprus Ltd.) had decided not to stand for re-election, due to his well deserved retirement from Moody's. We thank him for his many years of cooperation, contribution and sharing his wisdom and friendship with us and we wish him a nice long rest on this heavenly island. We have now two empty chairs in our executive committee and we will gladly receive applications from interested members, who have the wish, the time and the energy to join us in our efforts to safeguard and improve the international business environment. |
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Solvit
We wish to attract the attention of our readers to the existence of “SOLVIT”, an online problem solving network in which EU Member States work together to solve without legal proceedings problems caused by the misapplication of internal market law by public authorities. SOLVIT centers can help with handling complaints from both citizens and businesses. They are part of the national administration of each Member State and are committed to provide real solutions to problems within weeks. Using SOLVIT is free of charge. Policy areas SOLVIT has mostly dealt with so far are: recognition of professional qualifications and diplomas, access to education, residence permits, voting rights, social security, employment rights, driving licenses, motor vehicle registrations, border controls, market access for products and/or services, establishment as self-employed, public procurement, taxation, free movement of capital or payments. There are however no limitations: any person or business feeling that EU Laws or Regulations are not correctly applied, can take recourse to SOLVIT. As an example the following two cases have recently been handled by SOLVIT: A Dutch company exports orange juice from Brazil via the Netherlands to various EU Member States. On Cyprus , he was confronted with a requirement to produce a health certificate for his product as a condition for putting it on the market. Since this requirement was against EU law, the company contacted SOLVIT for help. SOLVIT Cyprus managed to convince the Ministry responsible that under EU law products from other Member States should be accepted without health certificate. The Ministry subsequently changed the rules. SOLVIT Cyprus thereby not only solved the specific problem but also achieved a structural change to avoid further problems in this area. Solved in three weeks. The Dutch authorities refused to grant the applicant, who is a third country national married to an EU citizen, the right to work without a work permit. He had to apply for a permit, which could take up to six months. The Dutch SOLVIT Centre succeeded in convincing the Dutch authorities that on the basis of EU law the applicant had the same rights of residence and access to work as his wife. Within 3 weeks applicant received an order from the Dutch authorities stating that he will receive a residence permit valid for five years and that he will be able to work in The Netherlands without restrictions. In its 5 years existence, SOLVIT has solved 82% of cases submitted (and accepted). A lot more examples, information and claim forms are available on the website http://ec.europa.eu/solvit . The Cyprus SOLVIT centre is located at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Mr. A. Galatariotis, telephone 22-867100, Telefax 22-304916, e-mail solvit@mcit.gov.cy . Before filing a complaint however please note that: • SOLVIT is not an information or legal advice network. • SOLVIT does not deal with problems between businesses or between consumers and businesses, nor with complaints about EU institutions. • SOLVIT only deals with problems that are due to a bad application of EU laws by public authorities within the EU member states. |
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