OREANDA-NEWS. Berlin hosted today the 31st Meeting of the European Business Congress (EBC) Presiding Committee moderated by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, President of the EBC.

The Presiding Committee Members heard the reports made by the Working Committees Chairpersons. It was pointed out that 15 projects were successfully completed with the support of the Congress, including energy efficiency, NGV and environmental projects. At present, work is underway within six programs aimed, inter alia, at the LNG market development, education advancement and nature protection.

The Meeting participants also addressed the amendments to the Presiding Committee structure. In addition, the Meeting adopted the Congress budget for 2015 and approved the key topic of the 18th Annual General Meeting of the EBC: “European Energy Sector: Future Structure and Position in the Global Market”. The 18th EBC Annual General Meeting will take place on May 28–29, 2015 in Belgrade.

EBC is an international, non-governmental and non-profit organization, which comprises 136 members from 25 OSCE member states, including Gazprom, ExxonMobil, Daimler, Siemens, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Total, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, J. P. Morgan Bank International, Alcatel, Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, GDF SUEZ, Eni, Enel, BNP Paribas, UBS, Royal Boskalis Westminster, The Royal Bank of Scotland, KPMG, Societe Generale, Statoil, MND, MAN Ferrostaal, DONG Energy, Sakhalin Energy, Renaissance Capital and others.

The EBC's supreme body is the General Meeting. The 46-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.