Brussels, 13-05-05
Research C6/AMJGP

Draft Summary Minutes of The Meeting with the Host Organiser of the 17th European Union Contest for Young Scientist in Moscow and the European Commission April 21st, 2005

Participants:

Mr A. Karpov (host organiser), Mrs G. Gourova (assistant to AK), Mr K. Demikhov (Vice-Rector BMSTU), Mr JL. Lavroff (delegation of the EC in Moscow) Mrs K. Schultz (delegation of the EC in Moscow), Mr S. Parker (EC), Mr S. Gosden (EC), Mrs A. Piret (EC)

Stephen Parker (SP) welcomed all the participants and thanked the EC delegation in Moscow for hosting the meeting.

Mr Demikhov started by saying that the Contest has the support of the Minister for Science, Technology and Education and the Minister for Internal affairs (Mr Fursenko ).

Security

The security measures are taken at four main levels:

• Arrivals (airport)
• Itineraries
• University
• Venues of the cultural programme

A new security plan was presented, which will be translated and sent to the European Commission.

Mr Lavroff asked the question who would implement and who would take the responsibility for this security plan?

Response from Mr Demikhov:

The Minister of Internal Affairs' office will chair an advisory group involved in the implementation of the security measures. The implementation of these security measures will happen with the help of the road police for the different itineraries and with local police and local security staff for the different venues and the airport.

At the hotel of the contestants the security staff will be increased and especially trained. People that do not take part in the Contest will not be allowed to enter the floor foreseen for the Contestants.

Contestants will receive badges containing information in Russian (address of the hotel/BMSTU/urgency tel.number)

Visitors at the BMSTU will have to be registered and leave their bags at the reception desk before they can visit the exhibition.

Visas

The Host Organiser will send invitation letters on behalf of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) to all participants in this year's contest. With this invitation, the participants have to go to the Russian Embassy or Consulate of their country to obtain a visa

To facilitate the issuing of visas, Mr. Karpov requested that each National Organiser should send the names of their delegations to his team as soon as possible.

Travel: arrival and departure

The arrivals of the contestants will be divided in two groups (details will be given later). Night-flights will be avoided; only for Korea and China this could be difficult to avoid.

Contestants and escorts will be assisted by Russian student-helpers in the passport-control.

Medical help

There will be a permanent team for First Aid in the BMSTU-building (next to the exhibition room).

As usual, all participants to the EU contest are obliged to have a medical insurance. The National Organisers must make sure that contestants and escorts have the necessary medical insurance.

Press and publicity, publications

Journalists

It was pointed out that the foreign journalists invited (and paid by the Commission) to the Contest will have to be accredited at least four weeks before the event takes place.

Press-conference

Further to Mr Karpov's remark that the press-conference could be held at the Kremlin but that this was not sure yet, Mrs Schultz proposed to use the conference-room of the EC Delegation in Moscow. She pointed out this would have to be checked with the Head of the Press & Info-Centre, who could eventually moderate the press-conference the day of the award-ceremony.

(Mr S. Gosden who is in charge of the contacts with the press on this event is currently in contact with Mrs Nabokina on this matter)

Catalogue

The EC will provide the edited project-abstracts during the month of June. It was agreed that the H.O. sends a draft version (Word) of the contest-catalogue as soon as it is ready.

Protocol

The H.O. has to inform the EC as soon as possible on the people that will attend the award-ceremony. The EC will provide a provisional list of EC-officials and "VIPs" before the end of May.

Contractual issues

A long discussion has taken place (and was partly continued the next day) on the contractual issues. The main problem for the H.O. is that he can not pay the prize-money to the prize-winners of the Contest. This is due to the Russian legislation that will not permit money transfer other than "salaries" and "wages". It obliges the H.O. to pay 40% taxes on each money transfer, whether it is prize-money or fees to pay the jury-members.

The European Commission's legal department is currently looking into this problem and trying to find a suitable solution.

Anne MJG Piret