JEAN VAURIOT’S SPEECH

MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTOR

I have decided not to seek the renewal of my mandate as a member of the Board of Director of the European Group of Retired Staff from Saving Banks.

Indeed, since 1993, year during which our Association was welcomed in Brussels by the European Commission, the environment, the techniques, and the working methods have developed in a spectacular way. It was then necessary to free up some space for younger people more able to think and find solutions to the new problems.

            But before leaving, I would like to pay my respect, with gratitude and emotion, to some of the men who contributed to the birth and life of the Group:

            First of all, Francisco Bernabeu Penalva, the Founding President of the Group, who managed, thanks to his tenacity, to gather all the good wills and lay the foundation of the Group.

            Then, José Lidon Meseguer, who succeeded him as President. He was the real architect of the development of the Group, he endowed it with solid structures and prepared it to face the future. Without those men, the Group would definitely not exist today.

I want to pay a special tribute to José Lopez Martinez, who succeeded them and put new life to the Group, thanks to his working methods, by combining rigor of modernity and respect of tradition. He was re-elected President and there is no doubt that the motivated and united team which he will rally around him will help strengthen the efficiency of the Group's actions.

            I would also like to reaffirm our friendship, and I may not forget another friend, who is absent today, Franco Salza, whose humanist spirit and elevation of mind brought to the Group what Bergson called “a supplement of the soul”. I hope he will be back with us soon.

            Also, my thoughts go to Roger Miralgo, one of the Group founding members, who worked with faith, enthusiasm and determination to make the Group be known in France and to pass on a very important European message to the French Federation.

            I leave because I did not want to fulfil a mandate too many; mainly because there are motivated, hard-working successors who are ready to push things ahead.

            I only have pleasant memories of my working years in the Group. And I want to express all the pleasure I feel for having shared those moments of happiness with my colleagues of the Board of Director.

            I am still really attached to the Group, which life is absolutely necessary both as far as thinking and acting are concerned.

            Men pass by, but the Group remains and I hope that the « Euromeetings » will still be a meeting place, which gathers us every year in a spirit of friendship, heartiness and work.

            In a social environment which is not particularly kind to us, we must not slacken our efforts since, as it was written by the French writer Georges Bernanos: « We do not suffer the future, we make it. »

            Thanks to everyone.

Jean Vauriot

 Albufeira, 5^th of April 2008