A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2022 to you and your families!

Dear Members,

The year 2021 is soon about to end and we are looking back on another year full of mutual achievements and changes.

The past year was marked by the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, by shortages of inputs that brought a strain on production capacities as well as ongoing supply chain problems.

Looking ahead, though rising Covid-19 infection rates again are threatening to further disrupt supply chains of our industry, we are confident that together, we can and will shape the future of our industry in Europe to our mutual benefit.

Over the past year, the CEO has undergone several changes to keep up with our members’ needs and present a modern appearance and contents in the future. One part of that process was the new logo as well as the relaunch of the CEO website and new association presentations to attract new members and improve the benefits for existing members.
To face the challenges of the SarsCov2-restrictions and still foster a close contact between the our industry, the CEO has hosted a new format of Online-Roundtables as well as the first European Tool Days in December.

On the personnel side, there also were changes at CEO. At our CEO Congress in Lausanne, the Board of Management appointed Stefan Horst as the new CEO General Secretary in succession of Michael Liebhardt, who has retired in November after 34 years in the tool industry and 23 years as CEO General Secretary. Also, Noel Thiefine has been appointed as the new deputy General Secretary.

New requirements from Brussels, i.e. REACH or the Construction Products Regulation, presented significant challenges to our industry. The CEO’s work continued to be successful in important fields within our sector. For example, CEO’s objections and argumentation towards the EU Commission against mandatory origin marking in the framework of the Consumer Product Safety Regulation (CPSR) still results in blocking the proposal for an obligatory origin marking on consumer products, with the Commission planning to withdraw its proposal. Also, the ongoing discussions about Lead and Chrome restrictions in the REACH Regulation continued to be in the CEO’s main focus. CEO will continue to work on this issue in 2022.

We would like to thank you all for your contribution and co-operation in 2021. Together, we can be a strong force when it comes to representing our sector’s interests. We are hoping that the pandemic situation improves in 2022, so we can once again all meet at next year’s congress in Athens in a “regular format congress”.

In that spirit, the CEO General Secretary sincerely wishes you and your families a Merry Christmas and a successful start into the New Year 2022.

Kind regards,

Stefan Horst
CEO Secretary