October summit

Senior construction Industry representatives and national associations will meet in Brussels from 16 to 17 October for cece's major summit meeting. This slimed-down, business-like meeting is held every other year, alternating with the cece Congress.

This year's summit promises to be the best ever, with its location in Brussels helping to ensure the participation of senior members of the European Commission as well as Members of the European Parliament.

As well as providing a forum for discussion and workshops on key issues facing the industry, the summit will also see the launch of three major initiatives from cece.

The first is the presentation of cece's legislation roadmap. This outlines the new, more pro-active approach cece will be taking to any European policy, directive or other instrument that impacts on the construction equipment sector. It will outline the way the equipment industry plans to interact with the European Commission, Council and Parliament to ensure the its needs are represented.

The new approach will also see the industry propose changes or new initiatives to the European institutions to help bring down trade barriers within the EU, and to increase trade with the rest of the world through better harmonisation of technical standards and legal requirements.

One of the first areas that will be looked at under this framework is how safety can be improved in situations where construction equipment has to be moved using public roads.

CECE's second new initiative is a campaign entitled "Choose the original - Choose Success", which is an expansion of a scheme launched by its German member association the Verband Deutscher Maschinenund Anlagenbau (VDMA). The campaign will stress the advantages of using genuine equipment and spare parts rather than copied non-original parts, which are of inferior quality and which are not backed-up by a reputable manufacturer's guarantee.

The key message of the campaign is that choosing the "cheap" option for equipment and spares is usually more expensive in the long-term, due to less efficiency and increased downtime.

The third major initiative at the Summit will be the launch of the cece Market Report, which has been developed for the association by Italian market research institute Prometeia.

Programme

Besides these initiatives, the Summit will include a full programme of seminars and workshops. Morning sessions on 17 October will cover issues of global competition, with speakers including Felix Selinger, ceO of German manufacturer Putzmeister AG and Heinz Zourek, Director General responsible for Enterprise at the European Commission.

Other sessions in the morning will include the presentation of the legislation road map by incoming cece president Tim Leverton of JCB, which will be followed by a round table discussion.

The issues of intellectual property rights and counterfeiting will also be discussed, with presentations from Philippe Cohet, executive vice president of Manitowoc Crane Group and Luc Pierre Devigne, head of unit at the European Commission Directorate General for trade. This session will also see the launch of the cece "Choose the Original

- Choose Success" initiative to fight counterfeiting, presented by Joachim Schmid, managing director of the VDMA's construction equipment branch.

In the afternoon participants can chose from one of two forums. Forum A will examine the market for construction equipment and will see the launch of the cece Market Outlook Report. In addition to looking at Europe, the Forum will provide information on global markets including booming areas such as Russia and the CIS.

Forum B will look at legislative issues and provide an update on what laws and regulations are in the pipeline. This will include a look at sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as well as industry-specific issues such as the Noise Directive and the implications of the Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) directive.

• More information on the cece Summit is available for the website, www.cece-eu.org