NEWSLETTER Consiglio Architetti
Europa - n° 5-04
The monthly electronic note from the Architects’
Council of Europe
Tuesday 18th May 2004
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INTRODUCTION
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Welcome to the fifth issue in 2004 of ACE
Info, the monthly update from the Architects' Council of
Europe that will give you, at a glance, information on current
issues, highlighting emerging areas of activity and informing
you of matters of interest in the field of architectural
policy. This issue is also available in French.
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CORE ISSUES
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THE ACE POLICY BOOK - ARCHITECTURE
AND QUALITY OF LIFE
The ACE Policy Book has been presented
to the General Assembly of the ACE in Milan on the 7th May
2004. The book sets out the position of the ACE on matters
of central importance in European Union policy that affects
the built environment. It also sets down the issues that
should underlie the development of any European Policy on
Architecture, an objective that the ACE believes is worthy
of pursuit. Further core elements of the book have been
encapsulated in “21 Key Messages for the 21st Century”
which appear in the text of the book and as a double-sided
A3 poster. The book has been published in a “head-to-toe”
format in French and English. It can be ordered at a cost
of 6.00EUR (+ postage/packing) by e-mail to info@ace-cae.org
and can be accessed in PDF format on the ACE website at
www.ace-cae.org
SERVICES IN THE INTERNAL MARKET
A public hearing on the proposal for a
directive on Services in the Internal Market is to be held
by the EESC (European Economic and Social Committee) on
the 24th May 2004. The rapporteurs on the subject for the
Committee are Ernst Ehnmark and Arno Metzler (Secretary
General of the association of German liberal professions-BfB).
Ernst Ehnmark was the rapporteur on the Qualifications Directive
or the Committee. Alain Sagne will attend the hearing on
behalf of the ACE.
ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE AND THE
MARKET
On the occasion of the ACE General Assembly
in Milan, the CNAPPC (Italian architects national Council)
organised a seminar on the issue of the architectural practice
and the market. It was well attended and there was a range
of international speakers invited who set the general economic
and regulatory scene before discussing in depth the implications
of possible reforms on the architectural profession. The
proceedings of the seminar will be published in due course.
THE ACE GENERAL ASSEMBLY –
MILAN
The first General Assembly of 2004 was
held in Milan on the 7th and 8th May. It was the first Assembly
after the Enlargement of the EU and a special welcome was
extended to the 11 Member Organisations of the ACE (since
1st January 2004) from the 10 new Member States that have
just joined the EU. In all there were about 120 delegates
present and fruitful debate on a number of priority areas
took place. Highlights of the work of the Assembly include
the adoption of the first version of the guidelines of the
ACE on the transposition of the provisions of the Directives
on Public Procurement into national law, the adoption of
the text of the inter-professional mutual recognition agreement
between the ACE and the US (specifically the NCARB and the
AIA) and the endorsement of the ACE 21 key messages for
the 21st Century. The Assembly also made progress on the
revision of ACE’s structures to take account of its
enlarged Membership and of the need to ensure efficiency
in its working methods.
THEMATIC STRATEGY ON THE URBAN
ENIVRONMENT
The ACE has submitted a commentary on the
Communication of the Commission on the Thematic Strategy
on the Urban Environment. The submission highlighted concerns
that the approach being adopted by the Commission is placing
too much emphasis on transport issues at the expense of
taking an integrated and holistic approach to the issue.
The ACE has made the point that it is the issue of Sustainable
Urban Design that should be the priority of the four themes
being pursued.
A further concern is the fact that the
Commission does not propose, at least for the time being,
to pursue the substance of the issues raised in the work
of the expert group on Sustainable Construction Methods
and Techniques that was chaired by the ACE, notably as regards
the transposition of the recommendations of the group into
policy proposals. Instead, it has decided to establish a
further working group on Urban Environment Research and
Training Needs, in which it is meant to cover urban design
and sustainable construction. The ACE has nominated Adrian
Joyce as an expert to this group and the Commission has
appointed him to the group. The first meeting of the Group
is scheduled to take place on the 25th May 2004 in Stockholm
with three further meetings to be scheduled before the end
of 2004.
QUALIFICATIONS DIRECTIVE
The proposal for a directive on the recognition
of professional qualifications has been developed further
in the last month. The Commission has published its modified
proposal and the Council reached political agreement during
its meeting of the 17th and 18th May by qualified majority.
Germany and Greece voted against. Both texts have been seen
by the ACE and it is clear that there is still some distance
between the two institutions on the detail of the proposal,
particularly in relation to the provision of services on
a temporary or occasional basis. For the architectural profession
there are some indications that the significant lobbying
of the ACE to ensure the maintenance of high quality standards
of qualifications will soon bear fruit with the moving of
the list of skills and aptitudes from the annexe of the
proposal to the core text and the possibility of a revised
procedure for the assessment of qualifications that are
considered not to meet the requirements of the directive.
For the text of the Commissions amended proposal visit:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/qualifications/future_en.htm
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OTHER MATTERS
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STEEL TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM
On the 12th March last, Commissioner Busquin
announced the establishment of the Steel Technology Platform.
Its aim is to meet the strategic ambitions of the European
steel industry over the period to 2030. In particular it
will address the objectives of the industry to reduce its
impact on the environment during production and use, with
particular regard to carbon dioxide emissions and to increase
its share of the construction market. For more information
see the following address:
http://www.cordis.lu/coal-steel-rtd/steel/events_stp.htm
EU COMPETITIVENESS COUNCIL MEETING
Ministers from 31 countries in Europe and
three EU Commissioners met, on the 27th April last, to consider
the competitiveness challenges faced by Europe. They were
joined by leaders from industry, science and innovation.
The two key problems that were identified at the meeting
were that excessive regulation and the resulting lack of
sufficient competition in Europe and the environment for
carrying out research in Europe. In the first instance it
concluded that better regulation is needed to deliver a
true European Single Market in goods, services, people and
capital. In the second case the meeting highlighted the
fact that the conditions for research in Europe are not
sufficiently attractive for it to retain its best and most
gifted researchers. These high level conclusions indicate
the high priority that the EU is giving to theses linked
issues that both affect the architectural profession.
THE GOTHENBURG STRATEGY –
EESC REVIEW
The European Economic and Social Committee
(EESC) adopted an opinion on the 29th April 2004 that is
highly critical of the lack of progress and political commitment
being given to the EU’s sustainable development strategy
adopted in Gothenburg ion 2001. Sources in the Commission
have indicated that Mr. Prodi’s cabinet does not want
to give too much visibility to the opinion as the EU is
focussed in the issues of competitiveness and the slow progress
of the Lisbon Agenda. It is the view of the ACE that both
the Gothenburg strategy and the Lisbon Agenda must be progressed
hand in hand, as emphasised in the new ACE Policy Book (See
above). The EESC opinion states that the EU’s commitment
to sustainable development should underpin and complement
all of its policies.
THE CLIMATE GROUP
In the UK a new group has been formed that
brings together oil giants, financiers, other businesses,
the UK government and civil society organisations. The charity
organisation claims that it can speed up greenhouse gas
reductions by pooling diverse and previously isolated centres
of expertise across industries and continents to link winning
solutions and sources of capital. The group has acknowledged
that some companies in the oil and gas sector have done
little or nothing to tackle the problem. For more information
visit:
http://www.theclimategroup.org/
CO-ORDINATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY
IN EUROPE
Unemployed people will be able to seek
work in another EU country much more easily by “exporting”
their social welfare entitlements following the adoption
of a new EU Regulation. The regulation permits Member States
to allow unemployed people bring their social welfare entitlements
from their home to the EU country where they are seeking
work. The new Regulation 1408 also impacts on the area of
health care by ensuring that all insured persons will receive
the same treatment during a temporary stay in another Member
State when such treatment becomes medically necessary.
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EVENTS
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EUROPEAN WEEK FOR SAFETY AND HEALTH AT WORK 2004
Every year the EU (European Agency for
Safety and Health at Work, based in Bilbao, Spain) organise
a week for safety and health at work and choose a topic
on which to focus. This year the focus will be on construction
through the Building in Safety Campaign and the events of
the year will culminate during the European Week scheduled
for the 18th to the 22nd October. At the launch of the event
in Dublin on 30th April last, the Irish Prime Minister emphasised
the responsibility of all actors in the construction industry,
including architects, to tackle the issue of building safely.
For more information see:
http://osha.eu.int/ew2004/
INTERNATIONAL COMICS FESTIVAL
The 21st International Comics Festival
is scheduled to take place in Sierre, Switzerland from the
10th to the 13th June 2004. The theme this year is “Comics
and Architecture” with many varied events planned.
Full information iis available at:
www.bdsierre.ch
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PUBLICATIONS
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UK CONSTRUCTION REPORT
The latest UK Construction Report has recently
been published. It contains details of the level of activity
in the UK Market over various sectors and contains many
tables illustrating the activity in the year 2003. It costs
EUR716.00 and can be purchased online at:
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c1657
NCARB’s MONOGRPAH SERIES
The NCARB produce a series of monographs
on specific technical topics that are of interest to architects.
For US registered architects the study of these monographs
counts as CPD credits. Titles include “Seismic Mitigation”,
“Why Buildings Fall” “Fire Safety in Buildings”,
“Energy-conscious Architecture” etc They can
be ordered online at:
www.ncarb.org
USEFUL LINKS
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION HOMEPAGE
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm
SEARCH PAGE FOR COMMISSION DOCUMENTS
http://www.europa.eu.int/prelex/rech_simple.cfm?CL=en
WEBSITE OF THE IRISH PRESIDENCY
http://www.eu2004.ie/
COMMISSION CONSULTATION ON PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice/pubproc/index_en.htm
SUSTAINABLE BUILDING WEBSITE
www.sustainablebuilding.info
B4E CONFERENCE INFORMATION
http://www.b4e.org
COAC INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS DATABASE:
http://www.coac.net/internacional/default_w.html
CNAPPC DATABASE – ARCHIEUROPE:
http://www.archieuro.archiworld.it
ACE WEBSITE
http://www.ace-cae.org
USEFUL TIP:
In the website addresses given in ACE Info for the documents
of the EU, you will frequently see the following near the
end of the address: “_en”. These two letters
define the language of the document (English in the case
of “en”) and you can usually change these two
letters in order to bring you to a different language version
as follows:
French _fr German _de Danish _da
Italian _it Spanish _es Greek _el
Dutch _nl Portuguese _pt Finnish _fi Swedish _sv
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EDITOR’S NOTE
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The editorial board for the compilation of
ACE Info is:
The ACE President: Leopoldo Freyrie
The Secretary General of the ACE: Alain Sagne
Senior Advisor to the ACE: Adrian Joyce
ACE Info is normally issued on the second
Wednesday of each month. You are free to circulate the document
as widely as you wish, to translate its contents for use
in your publications and to refer to the information it
contains once you credit the ACE as the origin.
If you do not wish to receive this monthly
document, then please e-mail info@ace-cae.org
requesting to be removed from the list.
If you have information that you wish to
have included in the next issue then e-mail it (in English
or French please) to adrian.joyce@ace-cae.org
Deadline for submissions is the first Friday of each month.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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The editorial board wishes to acknowledge
the sources of information for this issue of ACE Info which
include the Euractiv website (www.euractiv.com),
Bulletin Quotidien Europe, CCBE-Info No. 8, PCN Update March
2004, UNICE @ News March 2004 and Jean-Marie Fauconnier.
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adrian.joyce@ace-cae.org
– Comments and contributions welcome
