EYBA/GAJ International. Summary of the participation of EYBA President Elisabeth Batista, at the 44th European Presidents’ Conference, on 4-6 February 2016 in Vienna

The conference was led by the President of the Austrian Bar Association, Dr. Rupert Wolff. Among the speakers we highlight the intervention of Conlan Smyth, Chairman of the CCBE Working Group on Migration (Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe), who strongly criticised how the European Union was handling the refugees and the immigration issue, and the need to establish harder policies in order to control more and better this social fact.

We stress as well the speaker Boubaker Bethabet, Vice-President of the National Bar Association of Tunisia, an Association which has recently received the Nobel Prize for its contribution to the construction of a plural democracy. Besides, the speaker mentioned the importance to protect the refugees and the social responsibility to apply measures against the threat of terrorism.

At the question-and-answer time, the President of the Bar Association of Thessaloniki, Nikolaos Valergakis gave a hard opinion regarding the difficulties arising from managing more than 10,000 refugees, who must be provided with food, clothes, medicines and a place to live.

During this meeting, the current EYBA President, Elisabeth Batista, took the chance to let the IBA President (International Bar Association), David W. Rivkin, and the UIA President (Union Internacional des Advocats), Jean-Jacques Uettwiller know the difficulties existing for young lawyers to attend international meetings, considering their high cost.

Finally, we inform you that negotiations have been started with the current AIJA President (International Association of Young Lawyers), Orsolya Görgényi with the aim to achieve a joint collaboration between AIJA and EYBA and to promote that their members (and, therefore, the members of GAJ Barcelona) participate in the conferences organized by both Associations with special advantages. We will keep you informed!

We hope you find interesting the information provided.

The Barcelona Young Bar Association
(GAJ Barcelona)