Latest News

Lively debate in Budapest: the European Area Meeting

By Elaine Durrant, partner, Milsted Langdon

This year’s European Area Meeting (EAM) was held in Budapest, Hungary, and was attended by 66 delegates and 19 accompanying persons. All the UK firms were represented.

 The event was hosted by Laszlo Killik and his team from MGI BPO, who gave us a warm welcome on arrival at the beautiful Marriot hotel, on the banks of the Danube and boasting fantastic views across the river to the historic part of the city. Our conference rooms were carefully chosen to make the most of the views. 

The conference was opened by Laszlo on Thursday afternoon. This was followed by drinks and dinner in the hotel in the evening. The dinner was also BPO’s 10th anniversary party, to which clients of the firm were invited. It was a privilege to be able to celebrate this milestone with BPO and live music, dancing and traditional Hungarian food and drink completed the party.  

On Friday and Saturday we had a full delegate programme, which included new members’ presentations from Georgia, Italy, Norway and Denmark.

Clive Viegas Bennett, European Executive Director, presented his report on marketing MGI in Europe. His analysis of the competitive environment we work within was insightful and in particular he gave some useful guidance on how to improve members’ websites. 

He then described a proposal to create a premium membership for those firms with the ability and desire to grow international business. This proposal proved to be controversial and sparked a healthy debate, to which the UK delegates contributed, even though they would not be able to participate in the voting for the motion scheduled for later in the day.

Given the number of points still being discussed at the end of the day, Clive suggested that the debate should continue over dinner that evening and that the vote be held the next morning. Dinner was certainly more animated than usual and the feeling the next morning was that members needed to consult further and so it was agreed that a separate meeting  would be convened at a later date at a venue to be agreed.

Dinner on Friday evening involved a short walk to a boat restaurant moored on the Danube.  It was a beautiful evening and drinks on the upper deck watching the sun set on Buda castle was only out done by Lazslo celebrating his wedding anniversary in style.  

One of the most popular sessions on Saturday was a presentation on Hungary in East Central Europe” by historian and economist Miklos Ziedler. Finally Nico Hansen dealt with the budget, which left closing remarks and a final lunch before we all drifted back to the airport for various flights home.

As ever, the most enjoyable and productive part of the conference was catching up with old friends and making new contacts. In addition to our European colleagues, it was a good opportunity to meet the new members and some delegates from further afield, such as the US, China and Argentina. Our thanks go to Lazslo and his team at BPO for hosting a successful conference and welcoming us to Hungary.