The first meeting of the new assembly of delegates of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) was held in Lisbon on June 16th, 2018.
The newly elected delegates representing the full members and delegates appointed newly by their national societies met for the first time in Lisbon during the annual meeting of the EAN. This assembly has been elected (or appointed) for the next 4 years, and will meet again in Oslo (2019), Paris (2010) and Vienna (2021).
The President, Günther Deuschl, chaired the assembly of delegates for the last time. In his report he detailed how much has been achieved during the last 4 years, for research (including guidelines production, a major activity of the EAN), teaching activities (fellowship, educational events in Europe and in Africa in cooperation with regional and local societies, e-education), lobbying in Brussels, and collaborations with national societies of neurology and European societies of subspecialties and patient organisations.
In his report, the Secretary General, Didier Leys, predicted that the number of 1,000 full individual members would be reached during the meeting (actually, the threshold of 1,000 was reached during the general assembly meeting). He proposed changes in the bylaws, most being just technical changes suggested by the lawyer to follow the Austrian law. The only important change is to have the same number of delegates for those representing full members and those representing national societies (currently 47).
The Treasurer, Marianne De Visser, showed that the EAN is in excellent financial health, and that a fair part of the financial assets will be dedicated to guideline production. A limitation is the fact that the sources of income are very much dependent on the congress and should be diversified in the future.
The report of the EAN President, the changes in bylaws and the report of the Treasurer with the confirmation of the financial auditor, were approved by the assembly of delegates after a short discussion.
The President also gave, on behalf of the EAN, two service-awards, to Prof. Riadh Gouider (Tunis, Tunisia) and Prof. Gallo Diop (Dakar, Senegal), in recognition of their outstanding work in Africa in relation with their national societies, the EAN and the WFN.
Finally, the election of new EAN Board Members was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Raad Shakir and Prof. Gustave Moonen. All Board members will leave their current position: Günter Deuschl becomes Past-President and Franz Fazekas becomes President. Of the five other elected members, four did not re-apply for a new position (Antonio Federico, Per Soelberg-Soerensen, David Vodusek, and Didier Leys), and one re-applied for a different position (Marianne de Visser). The last two members (Hannah Cock and Paul Boon) were appointed in 2014 and will also leave the Board. The new Board will take office immediately after the end of the annual congress:
- President: Franz Fazekas (Austria)
- Past-President: Günther Deuschl (Germany)
- President-Elect: Claudio Bassetti (Switzerland)
- General Secretary: Marianne de Visser (The Netherlands)
- Treasurer: Elena Moro (France)
- Chair of the Communication Committee: Dafin Muresanu (Romania)
- Chair of the Scientific Committee: Marie Vidailhet (France)
- The chairs of the Education and of the Program committees will be appointed by the new President after discussion with the new Board.
The last part of the meeting of the assembly of delegates consisted of the presentation of the 3 venues standing for the organisation of the congress in 2023, i.e. Budapest, Hungary, London, UK, and Prague, Czech Republic, and an update on the organisation of the Oslo meeting to be held in 2019.
The assembly ended with closing words of the President, and honours for the outgoing board members.
Lisbon, June 16, 2018
by Prof. Didier Leys, General Secretary
