Amsterdamhosted today the 28th Meeting of the European Business Congress (EBC) Presiding Committee and the 16th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the EBC. The meetings were moderated by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, President of the EBC. The AGM brought together more than 300 representatives of 96 companies and organizations from 25 OSCE member states.

According to the agenda, the meeting participants reviewed the 2012 EBC operating results, heard statements made by the Working Committees' Chairpersons and highlighted the progress with projects supported by the EBC.

The AGM adopted the annual report for the fiscal year 2012 and approved the performance of the EBC Presiding Committee and Board of Executive Directors over the past period. PricewaterhouseCoopers Berlin was identified as the EBC auditor for 2013. It was decided that the next AGM would take place in June in Athens (Greece).

The AGM participants considered the election of the EBC Presiding Committee. Following the voting results the newly elected EBC Presiding Committee is comprised of Klaus Schafer, Chief Executive Officer of E.ON Global Commodities, Andreas Boldt, Head of the Wintershall Holding Representative Office in Russia, Morten Hultberg Buchgreitz, Executive Vice President of DONG Energy, Roman Dashkov, Chief Executive Officer of Sakhalin Energy, Diarmaid Mulholland, Managing Director of Global Key Accounts at GE Oil & Gas, Nebojsa Jancovic, Head of the Comita Representative Office in Moscow, Hasan Mustafa, Managing Director, Head of Debt Capital Markets of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Gokhan Saygi, President of Schlumberger Russia & Central Asia and Olivier Lazare, Head of Shell in Russia.

The EBC Meeting included, inter alia, a Conference entitled “Development of LNG and its Impact on the European Gas Markets”, at which Alexey Miller delivered a statement.

Background

The European Business Congress (EBC) is an international, non-governmental and non-profit organization. The EBC comprises 141 members from 25 OSCE member states including such prominent corporations and banks as Gazprom, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, GDF SUEZ, Eni, Siemens, Petrol, MAN Ferrostaal, Daimler, Alcatel, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Societe Generale and others.

EBC's supreme body is the General Meeting. The 47-member Presiding Committee exercises general management. The EBC President is Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee. The 9-member Board of Executive Directors is responsible for executive management.

The EBC deals with economic cooperation issues in Europe and brings forward proposals for debottlenecking and building a safe and favorable environment for entrepreneurial activities. The EBC operates through seven Working Committees for: Energy; Industry and Construction; Law, Banking and Finance; Information and Communications; Ecology and Healthcare; Human Resources, Education and Science; Business Security.