On the 21st of November, 2015, Hon. Aykut Eken (Turkey) has been unanimously elected to the position of President, during the 11th World Congress of Consuls, “Bridging the World, held at the Conrad Bosphorus Istanbul.
Hon. Kostas Lefkaritis (Cyprus) has been unanimously elected to the position of Vice-President and the nine Members of the Executive Committees, who have been elected by the General Assembly, are:
Hon. S. Cohen (Monaco), L.-K. Sverstad, Norway, Hon. N.K. Margaropoulos (Greece), Hon. F. Piers (Belgium), Hon. M. Smole, Hon. A. Chowdhury (Slovenia), Hon. Dr. M.I. Baig (Pakistan), Hon. K.L. Ganju (India), Hon. T.A. Neves (Brazil).
Hon. Aykut Eken’s speech after elected to the position of PresidentDistinguished Members, Dear Colleagues
Thank you for electing me as president of FICAC.
I highly appreciate it.
It will not be easy after such a hard working president Prof. The Honorable Arnold FOOTE.
That is why we need to work harder cooperatively to take
FICAC to a higher level.
We will take on the missions from our previous administration and add to them MORE challenges.
For us, there are no difficulties one cannot get over.
Together we will take democracy, change, transparency, security, responsibility, negotiation and cooperation to an EVEN higher extent.
Team work will create our success
During my presidency we will be focusing on several issues which I would like to share with you.
We will be working on establishing diplomatic ID cards and visas which will be registered by the United Nations for each of us .
We believe this will clarify our status and ease the difficulties in our travels.
Another difficulty we face during our travels are the departures and arrivals at the airports.
We will try to solve the issue of airport parking so that
we can all have privileges.
Distinguished Members, one of our top priorities must be to form a FICAC Foundation.
This foundation should provide educational opportunities for children.
One other important issue is for a strong womens’ group to be formed in FICAC for their voice to be heard throughout the world..
Another issue we need to work on is Honorary Consuls rights and security.
We must not forget three important projects we have been undertaking together with His Serene Highness Prince Albert II Foundation, UNICEF and CVQO(Cadet Vocational Qualification Organization).
We will be extending these projects and establishing ties with Unesco for Cultural projects.
Distinguished Members, as I mentioned, cooperation is the most significant concept in reaching our aims.
So we need MORE and MORE FICAC members.
Our center of attention should therefore be to increase the number of committees and to strengthen bonds with universities, hospitals, other NGO’s and Chamber of Commerce’s and Associations. Vey soon, we will send to our members the name of the Committees and we would like to have the names of the colleagues who would like to work in these committees. We need hard and motive workers.
We shall improve our coordination with the UN, OECD and Security Groups.
Having listed our aims; we need to cooperate once again during this period to achieve massive successes and advantages.
We must work together; the East and the West, the North and the South, combined as whole; all continents and the four corners of the world.
Before concluding my speech I would like to say a Special thank you to Patrick Debus, FICAC Permanent Secretary for his hard work and assistance. He will continue to work as Assistant of the President Office. Because we have lots of work to do.
I would like to thanks to my wife. She really worked hardly to prepare the meeting.
Dear Members, I am grateful for each of your votes and my deepest hopes are for building another bright future for all together FICAC together.
Thank you…..
