18.1.2012 10.37
CEI / CEPI New Years Letter
Letter to CEI and Cepi members and member organisations
Dear colleagues around the World,
May we wish you, your families, your staff in the real estate offices in Europe a happy and prosperous New Year.
The year 2012 shall be filled with peace, prosperity in your business and personal health. We wish you the best of luck for the New Year.
The year 2012 is supposed to be an important year for the European Associations of Real Estate Professions. As you know the two associations, CEPI and CEI, have founded a common platform during the European Real Estate Congress in May 2011 in Berlin. During these days a memorandum of understanding and a timetable for the merger of the two associations has been developed.
When we look back at the end of the year 2011 all steps of actions that we have planned have been taken so far.
The Executive Board of the European platform is led by Jens-Ulrich Kießling, President of the German Real Estate Association IVD and General Secretary of CEPI. The Executive Board has put in place a working group that is preparing the statutes, the by-laws and the financial matters of the new association and is doing a tremendous job. CEPI and CEI have decided some common projects.
The projects are dealing with important matters for the future of the real estate professions in Europe. The legal aspects of the professions of real estate agents and managers in Europe and the standard of the services combined with the educational requirements for the professions are under evaluation in these common projects.
We hope that in early summer this year the first reports of the two working committees can be held during a joint meeting. We will keep you informed on these matters.
As you can see it is not only to create a new association in Europe what we are working on. It is more than that: the future of our professions as real estate agents and real estate managers is highly influenced by decisions in Brussels. The aim of the joint association is to have a very strong representation of the real estate professions in Europe and to lay ground for very good business conditions of the members of CEI and CEPI in Europe. Therefore the international cooperation of members and associations is very important.
Both CEPI and CEI signed an agreement with FIABCI in December 2011 for a good cooperation of these associations. Together with all our activities the cooperation with international associations is an important part of these good business conditions for the real estate professions in Europe.
With the beginning of the year 2012 Timo Multanen as President of CEPI is stepping down from his duties. In the past three years a very good personal relationship between the two of us as presidents of the two major European associations of real estate professions have led to the negotiations about a merger of CEPI and CEI.
It is like in all our businesses we are facing on a daily basis: a good personal relationship leads to a trustful cooperation and finally is the origin for the closure of a contract or a productive business relationship. We as the two presidents of CEPI and CEI were working together on that basis.
The new president of CEPI, Claudine Speltz, is very much invited to take over the position of Timo Multanen in the negotiations about the merger of CEPI and CEI in 2012. We are very much looking forward to introduce her in that important part of her work. Our common goal is that at the end of the year 2012 the merger of the associations has been finalized and the work of the new association can start in the year 2013.
It would be a pleasure if you'd support that goal personally and in your national association. At the end of this process we want to create an association with more than 50 national associations from 28 countries and more than 250.000 real estate professionals. It is good for each real estate professional to be part of such an important and huge association.
When it comes to a decision in your national association about the merger of CEPI and CEI in this year please have in mind that the basis for this new association is to create very good business conditions in terms of market conditions, legal aspects, transparency, standards for the services you provide, qualification requirements, recognition of qualification in other countries, fair competition of service providers in the real estate sector and a joint code of ethics for all professionals.
Now, more than ever, we need a vision for the future, coherent with the principles we defend. We sincerely hope that these values will prevail on the European scene in this New Year that has just begun.
It's been a pleasure to begin that process and it will be a pleasure to bring it to a success in 2012 with your help.
Yours sincerely,
Timo Multanen Manuel Sotto Mayor Negrao

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