The EESC sails for Europe - Hoofdinhoud

The EESC sails for Europe

This Friday, 11 April 2008, at 11.30 a.m. precisely, the yacht Treaty of Rome will leave its Brussels base at the BRYC (Brussels Royal Yacht Club) to embark on a Tour of Europe, in the course of which it will hoist the European Union flag in around 20 ports across the 27 Member States to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the setting up of the Union's main Institutions.

Skipper Philippe Hanin and his crew will embark on a lengthy voyage which will take them across the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. Among those seeing them off will be Mr Xavier Verboven, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee's Bureau (who will be representing the EESC President Mr Dimitris Dimitriadis), Mr Charles Piqué, President of Brussels-Capital Region, Mr Luc Van den Brande, President of the Committee of the Regions, the Commodore of the BRYC, and their numerous supporters.

Treaty of Rome returns to the sea today thanks to the invaluable financial and logistical support of several private companies and a number of adventurous institutions, including the European Economic and Social Committee, the Council of the EU, the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR), the European Confederation of Nautical Industries (ECNI), the Brussels-Capital Region, and the port of Brussels.

It seemed as if Treaty of Rome had made its last voyage when, at the initiative of the Sail for Europe association and with the support of Europe's leading politicians of the time (including Claude Cheysson, Léo Tindemans and Jean-François Deniau) the yacht completed a tour of major European ports (such as London, Dublin, Bonn, Copenhagen and The Hague) and reached its destination, Athens, on the day negotiations on Greece's accession to the European Communities were concluded.

True to their abiding ambition of bringing the public closer to the European project by going out and meeting it in this yacht - a metaphor for the spirit of the European team, the major discoveries of our continent, and the entrepreneurial mindset of our industrialists, as well as for the need to respect our environment -, the organisers behind Sail for Europe "rediscovered" Treaty of Rome two years ago and decided to restore it to its former glory for the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Union's founding Treaties.

The boat will reach Antwerp on 13 April, and will then head for Kiel and Gdansk. On 20 May it will be in Rotterdam, and on 25 May in Scheveningen (on the occasion of the European Movement's anniversary). On 27 and 28 May it will moor in Ostende before briefly returning to Brussels on 1 June where it will feature in the Port of Brussels' festivities. It will then grace the start of the Sailing Tour de France with its presence in Dunkirk, before sailing for London and Cowes, and arriving in Brest on 10 July. In July its destinations will include La Rochelle, and in August, Porto, Lisbon, Carthagena, and Valetta. It will arrive in Thessaloniki on 5 September before returning across the Mediterranean towards Rome (September), Castellón de la Plana (October) and Marseille. From December onwards, the boat will be on display at the "Salon nautique de Paris" as part of a joint project organised with the European Confederation of Nautical Industries.

The public are cordially invited to the BRYC on Friday 11 April at 11.15 a.m.

You can follow the Treaty of Rome's progress on the website www.sailforeurope.eu.

The Sail for Europe association andits institutional partners will regularly post photos in 300 dpi format with captions on their websites.

Beta SP and Beta digit images will be made available to journalists who send a request to that effect to info@sailforeurope.eu