IIW History 1990-2015

This led to renewed debate, sometimes behind the scenes, at meetings and Annual Assemblies such as the 46th Annual Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland in August 1993. This became what could be termed a ‘burning issue’ leading to an extraordinary meeting of the Executive Council where a submission written by Dr Glenn Ziegenfuss was put by the United States of America (USA), supported by Canada, to consider a proposal for the establishment of a single secretariat. 17 The Executive Council decided to approach this matter with deep reflection and to make a decision based on a cost versus benefit analysis. This eventually resulted in a request for the institutes hosting the two different secretariats to put forward costed proposals for providing IIW with a merged function, including an Executive Director and support staff. 18 Two subsequent meetings were held by the

Executive Council to further examine the role and objectives of IIW. The combined result of these meetings was for the Institute to come up with a corporate plan that incorporated the views of Member Societies regarding the outcomes of the strategic plan and absorbed them into a plan for future action. In discussing the administrative structure, the single secretariat suggestion was examined initially by the Executive Council but no benefits could be identified over the current arrangement. Despite

Marcel Evrard

this finding there was still an element of tension within the IIW community, particularlybetween theBritishand theFrenchdelegations.MrMarcelEvrard, the Director General of the Institut de Soudure, was to comment that ‘relations had been tense during previous years when the merging was discussed in small groups, and internally at the Executive Council, before 1990’. 19 Pride and a possible sense of history was an inordinate part of the British consciousness 20 and the potential loss of the General Secretariat to the French would have been difficult to contemplate if it indeed was to become a reality. Across the Channel, French pride would have come into play too in the eventuality of any decision being made that included the likely loss of the Scientific and Technical Secretariat to the British. One consideration, not widely known or expressed at that time, was the likelihood of the payment of considerable value added tax (VAT) in France if the secretariat was situated in Paris, whereas IIW’s current status with the secretariat based in the UK meant that no tax would be required on its financial transactions. Besides these considerations, it was a time of great social and political upheaval in Europe following the breakdown of the Soviet Union when the Baltic, east European

TOWARDS 2000