ESU held it’s 54th Board meeting in Brusno, Slovakia from May 9th-11th. Organised by Slovak’s National Union, SRVS, 150 participants from our member unions spent three days deciding on the future of their umbrella organisation. Not least was the important matter of electing the future generation of volunteers who would represent ESU during 12 months starting in July this year. New structures passed at the 53^rd Board Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania in December last year, meant that the new elected bodies would be significantly different, as you can read in this month’s editorial.

Koen Geven, ESU chairperson since his election in December 2006, found a successor in Romanian Ligia Deca, currently a member of ESU’s gender equality committee. Filling the new position of Vice Chairperson is Anita Liice from Latvia, who has been a member of ESU’s committee on commodification since December 2005. The Executive Committee will be made up of Alma Joenson from Iceland (current member of the Gender Equality committee), Bruno Carapinha of Portugal (current member of the Bologna Process Committee) and Olav Oye of Norway (newly elected to an ESU position).

Other electees are:

Administrative Committee - Antigoni Ioannidou (Cyprus) and Joram Op Den Kelder (The Netherlands)
Student Union Development Committee - Jens Jungblut (Germany), Kate Chachava (Georgia)
Social Affairs Committee - Claire Guichet (France), Damien Ramage (France), Inge Gielis (Belgium) and Marin Baksa (Croatia)
Academic Affairs Committee - Ben Gray (UK) and Alessia Cacciagrano (Italy)

A handover meeting will be held in Belgium in July, after which this new generation of ESU representatives will take the floor until July 2009. Everyone at ESU wishes them all the best in their continuing fight for student rights across Europe.