Back to work and back to another major conference, this time organised by the Various Interests Group at the EESC (‘Group III’ in our internal parlance), on ‘A structured civil dialogue for a citizen-friendly European Union.’ The Conference opened under the Chairmanship of the Committee’s probable next President, Staffan Nilsson, and in its first session heard a keynote speech from European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding. I used to work for Ms Reding when she was in charge of education and culture in the Commission and it was nice to welcome her personally to the Committee. She underlined the basically positive approach of the Lisbon Treaty, which puts the citizens ahead of economics, and which now explicitly sets out the democratic conditions of the European Union. ‘I intend to ensure that an effective dialogue with the European citizen takes place,’ she insisted, continuing ‘who better than your Committee to get this message across?’