The institution for the governance of which you are legally responsible is teetering between malfunction and dysfunction.  From being a highly praised and much-admired organisation it has become a hotbed of suspicion, rumour, allegations of corruption and insurgency, accusation and counter-accusation.  It has lost the respect of a substantial number of users, employees and officers.  Its public relations policy -- if indeed it has one -- has failed to engage with the issues that concern the intellectual property community and which form a large part of its current agenda.  Its apparent inability to stem the exponential surge in staff disputes has all but brought the International Labour Organisation's mechanisms for dispute resolution to a grinding halt.  Its integrity has been increasingly questioned and its image has become a laughing stock and a byword for a dictatorial management style that has no place in an open, democratic Europe.

You, as members of the Administrative Council, are responsible both for the approval and formation of EPO policy and for its execution.  How many of you have sought and been given advice from your respective governments with regard to current events in Eponia? How many of you, in the light of your other commitments, have the time, the resources and the information to enable you to play an effective role within the Administrative Council?  How many of you can honestly say that you are happy with the present state of affairs? And how many of you are simply too scared to be able to stand up to the EPO's management?