The Network of ITS National Associations met in Brussels, February 29th, with a busy agenda. There was a new Chief Executive Officer of ERTICO - ITS Europe to meet, a new Chairman of the Network to elect, and time to say thank you to Christer Karlsson who has led the Network for the past three years. There were also three new members to welcome. In the case of ITS Network Germany it was a case of familiar names and faces but a new entity. Heinz Sodeikat, who is the familiar face of ITS Munich, explained that several attempts had been made over the last ten years to establish a nation-wide German organisation. They had all failed and in the meantime a number of regional and local ITS associations had developed. The solution, said Heinz, was to found a German organisation based on the network principle within which the existing local and thematic organisations could continue to work. The good news, reported in the January issue of ITS Solutions, was that seven independent organisations finally agreed to set up and fund an umbrella organisation and in December 2007 in Munich the new ITS Network Germany was founded. The formal signing took place in March at Cebit, witnessed by the German Minister of Transport. Heinz Sodeikat was elected Chairman of the new group and Norbert Handke of ITS Niedersachsen Chief Executive Officer. Heinz said that he had a very simple message. 'In future there will be one German face, and one German voice to the outside world.'
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