Report of the By-Laws Committee

P. Moutard (FR), Chair

Since the C 88 Council meeting, one BLC meeting took place on 21 October 2020. The Chairman of the BLC participated (via the video-conferencing system) to the Board meetings of 21 July 2020 (B111), 16 September (B112) and 27 October 2020 (B113).

The following topics were discussed by the BLC during the meeting of 21 October 2020:

the Re-design of the epi Collection of Decisions;
the BLC presentation about « rights and duties of Council members » for C89 ;
the proposal of the Internal Auditors to amend Art. 16.3 of the By-Laws (BL);
the proposal to amend Art.10C BL and Art.4 BL (at C87 Lisbon the adoption of these proposals was postponed);
the epi Strategic Plan.

Due to lack of time several topics were postponed to a next BLC meeting: possible amendments of the Terms of Reference of the PEC, of Article 5.2 BL (to include the case of voluntary resignations), and of Article 18B.4 d).

The next BLC meeting should take place at the beginning of December 2020.

I. The Re-design of the epi Collection of Decisions

This work has made substantial progress, due to the involvement of Vernessa Pröll and Amparo Coll.

2 BLC members, Günther Schmalz and Paolo Gerli are now also working on this project, which should be ready for a presentation at C 90.

II. Presentation about « rights and duties of Council members » during C89

This topic had been postponed several times because of other pending issues and because of the time spent at the beginning of this year on other topics in connection with the Covid crisis and the organization of the spring e-Council meeting (C88).

A presentation was made during interruptions of the election session of C89. Key aspects related to the Council were thus presented to the Council members, concerning the right and duties of Council members, but also the conduct of Council meetings and the voting and the election rules during epi Council meetings.

III. The proposal of the internal auditors to amend Art. 16.3 BL

This proposal was discussed during the BLC meeting of 21 October 2020 and the BLC first came to the conclusion that it was preferable to keep in art.16.3 BL a reference to the “amended budget”.

A further discussion took place on 29 October 2020 with the Internal Auditors and the Treasurer.

Finally, the BLC agreed with the auditors’ proposal.

IV. The proposal to amend Art.10C BL and Art.4 BL

The BLC had presented a proposal at C87 (Lisbon) to amend these articles.

This topic was reconsidered by the BLC on October 21 and it seems that further discussions are needed with the reporting group to find an acceptable solution.

V. The epi strategic plan

The BLC has agreed to discuss possible strategic issues for the future of the epi, not only limited to the By-Laws or the Collection of Decision.