Report of the Nominations Committee
C. Quintelier (BE), Outgoing Chair
The Nominations Committee has sent an e-mail to all epi members in order to invite those who are interested to work in a committee to nominate themselves, thereby using the tools made available on the epi website. Early September 2020 a reminder has been sent to all epi members in order to draw their attention on the time limit to enrol.
As for some committees there were fewer candidates than the number of electable members, the nominations procedure was reopened. In order to make clear when the time period would expire for this re-opening phase, the epi Secretariat had put the time limit on the website in order to clearly inform the members of the time limit.
Since the 2017 committee election, the Rules for elections of committee members in Council have changed, in particular Rules 3.3.4 and 3.3.5 came into force. We have noted some problems with the application of those new Rules, as well for what concerns their application by the epi members, as for the surcharge of work it caused at the epi Secretariat. The mere fact that the spring Council meeting was delayed due to the Corona pandemic, already caused a delay in making the nomination form available on the epi website. We also noted that some nominations did not comprise a CV of the candidate, which on its turn imposed additional work on the epi Secretariat to request the candidate to supply a CV. We would like to use this opportunity to draw the attention of all epi members on the importance of providing a CV and of completing the questionnaire made available on the website. The CV and the answers to the questions in the questionnaire are there for providing information to the Council members, who have to vote. In view of the fact that today there are 38 EPC Contracting States it is impossible for the Council members to know all the candidates. Therefore the CV and the questionnaire are there for helping the Council members with their choice for whom to vote.
Also the time limit mentioned in 3.3.4 on the one hand and the time limit mentioned in 3.3.5 on the other was confusing form some members.
The epi Secretariat and the Nominations Committee have taken note of the different problems and we will investigate this further and consult with the By Laws Committee on how the situation can be improved for the next election.
