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Klinisk Biokemi i Norden · 4 2015
Notes from Euromedlab 2015 and the 8th EFLM
General Meeting in Paris
Anders H. Johnsen, Kari Pulkki, Isleifur Olafssson, Ann-Helen Kristoffersen, Mats Ohlson
Nordic protests against changes in mandate peri-
ods of the EFLM executive board
The 21
st
IFCC –EFLM European Congress in Clinical
Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine was held in Paris
21
st
-25
th
of June. Approximately 4.200 delegates from
106 countries participated and 5.500 visitors were
registered. The program started with an impressing
opening ceremony followed by a lecture by prof. J
Hoffmann, the winner of the Nobel Prize in physio-
logy and medicine in 2011. During the congress 4 ple-
nary lectures were given by outstanding scientists, 27
symposiums and 37 educational workshops arranged
by the diagnostic industry were held and 15 sessions
organized by contributing federations and societies.
Almost 1.300 scientific posters were presented. The
exhibition covered approximately 4.000 m
2
with 160
companies in the clinical diagnostic industry presen-
ting their products.
The overall impression of the Euromedlab con-
gress was good. The program included many lectures
addressing practical problems of laboratory medicine
such as quality specifications, quality control and
management, international standardization and har-
monization. The educational workshops arranged by
the industry gave the diagnostic companies an oppor-
tunity to present their newest equipment and reagents.
Nevertheless there were some delegates at the meeting
which mentioned that the congress should have put
more weight on eminent scientific research relative to
highly practical issues.
The general meeting of EFLM was set on June 21
st
.
According to EFLM bylaws the agenda of the meeting
should cover reports of the president and treasurer
as well as voting for positions in the executive board.
Prior to the general meeting, on May 12
th
, the natio-
nal representatives and presidents received an e-mail
from the EFLM office with a document listing the
nominated candidates for the EFML executive board
2016-2017. The executive board has 7 members, i.e. the
president, the past president, the elected coming pre-
sident, secretary, treasurer and two members at large.
The president has a term of two years and the mandate
period of current president, Mr. Mauro Panteghini, was
due to terminate on December 31
st
2015 andMr. Sverre
Sandberg was to replace him. At the general meeting
in Paris the national representatives of EFLM should
have elected a new president elect for 2016-2017 to serve
as president for 2018-2019 (two candidates: Mr. Elvar
Theodorsson (SW) and Mr. Michael Neumaier (DE))
and two members at large for 2016-2017.
Unexpectedly, on June 1
st
the national EFLM repre-
sentatives and national presidents received a new e-mail
from the EFLMoffice. It contained an urgent letter from
the secretary of the EFLM executive board stating that
the agenda for the election of the executive board had
to be changed and that current president had to be re-
elected for an extraordinary term of two years and that
the election of a new coming president had to be post-
poned. The explanations for this change in the agenda
were that EFLM had been registered as a legal entity in
Belgium (AISBL, Association Internationale Sans But
Lucrative (International Non-Profit Association)) and
this registration obliged EFLM to adhere strictly to the
bylaws of EFLMand that the election and resignations of
the executive boardmembers had to be published in the
official Belgian Gazette and the Belgian trade register.
The secretary also stated that the complex transitions
arrangements in changing EFCC froman informal asso-
ciation to EFLMas anAISBL legal entity and alignments
with the legal requirements resulted in that the general
meeting of EFLM had to amend the procedure for the
appointment of executive board members.
This unexpected change of the agenda for the elec-
tion resulted in that Mr. Elvar Theodorsson, one of the
candidates for the coming president (nominated by
Iceland and Sweden), withdrew his candidature. The
presidents and EFLM national representatives of the
Nordic societies for clinical chemistry decided to react
to this last minute unexpected change of the agenda by
writing a letter to all the EFLM national representa-
tives and presidents. In the letter the Nordic societies
express their worries about contradictory information
