2002

Hiring of the 2^nd Director:

Fintan Farrel (Ireland) and he will stay as Director for 10 years (2002-2012)

13^th GA – Berlin (Germany):

“Putting Rights at the Centre of the EU Strategy against Social Exclusion.”

First EU Round Table for Social Inclusion:

The main role for the Round Tables (an important part of the Lisbon Process) was to follow and monitor the OMC and the Lisbon Strategy Objectives. The idea was that every country was supposed to participate with a delegation of representatives from: governments, trade unions, local authorities and NGO’s. Thanks to the work in Brussels, and the different bodies of EAPN, the national members always had a strong participation in the round tables. It was also an excellent opportunity for lots of them to be in touch with the governments representatives and, sometimes, to make direct lobby around specific matters. The Round Tables ran until 2010, but from 2005 on, with the trickle down of the ambition of the Lisbon Strategy, this exercise became almost sterile since there was almost nothing to follow-up and the disillusion, particularly from the NGO sector was quite strong. There took place in November every year from 2002 till 2010):

• 2002, 2th Round Table – Aarhus (Denmark)
• 2003, 3rd Round Table – Torino (Italy)
• 2004, 4th Round Table – Rotterdam (Netherlands)
• 2005, 5th Round Table – Glasgow (UK)
• 2006, 6th Round Table – Tampere (Finland)
• 2007 – 7th Round Table – Ponta Delgada (Portugal)
• 2008 – 8th Round Table – Marseille (France)
• 2009 – 9th Round Table – Stockholm (Sweden)
• 2010 – 10^th Round Table – Brussels (Belgium)

Introduction of the EURO currency:

The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999, although it had been a goal of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since the 1960s. After tough negotiations, particularly due to opposition from the United Kingdom, the Maastricht Treatyentered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating an economic and monetary union by 1999 for all EU member states except the UK and Denmark (even though Denmark has a fixed exchange rate policy with the euro). In 1999 the currency was born virtually and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate. It rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded behind the rest of the EU. On 1 January 1999 the third and final stage of EMU commenced with the irrevocable fixing of the exchange rates of the currencies of the 11 Member States initially participating in Monetary Union and with the conduct of a single monetary policy under the responsibility of the ECB. The number of participating Member States increased to 12 on 1 January 2001, when Greece entered the third stage of EMU. Slovenia became the 13th member of the euro area on 1 January 2007, followed one year later by Cyprus and Malta, by Slovakia on 1 January 2009, by Estonia on 1 January 2011, by Latvia on 1 January 2014 and by Lithuania on 1 January 2015. On the day each country joined the euro area, its central bank automatically became part of the Eurosystem.