Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 226)
WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2009
Dr Udo Helmbrecht and Dr Jeremy Beale
Q220 Chairman:
I am not interested in London to Athens—that is the normal
thing. What I am concerned about is Athens to Crete.
Dr Helmbrecht: Athens to Crete, in the summer
it is nearly an hourly basis; in winter time it is Olympic and
Aegean so you have some flights in the morning, some flights in
the afternoon and late evening, so there are a number of flights.
Q221 Chairman:
Let me take this a little further. I think the Committee was not
aware that you had an arrangement in Athens where you could have
meetings there, but if you cannot tell us straight out could you
give us supplementary evidence of, say, over the last year how
many visits have you had for meetings from outside visitors who
are not employed by the Agency? It is this matter of the inconvenience
of getting to Crete that we are not clear about and it would be
helpful if we knew how many people a year come to visit you. Could
you give us that information?
Dr Helmbrecht: I can give it—I apologise
not now. The basic information is that the Athens office, which
is paid for by the Greek Government, we have had since the autumn
of this year. We did not have it before; so the last five years
it has really meant meetings in Heraklion or meetings at other
places in Europe.
Dr Beale: What you are getting at, I think—and
I can point out another aspect of it—when I go to get a
flight from Heraklion to Athens in the winter I only need to leave
the office about half an hour to get to the airport and through
to the departure gate. If I need to go to Heathrow from many places
in London I need to give it an hour, and at Heathrow I may need
to give a good hour to get through check in and security. There
are certainly drawbacks but there are benefits of being in a quiet
airport during the winter.
Q222 Chairman:
What I am thinking about is the inconvenience of people visiting
you for meetings and business, who have to spend probably an extra
night getting to Crete and an extra night getting back. It sounds
like two nights in Athens, which is highly inconvenient and expensive,
and what I am trying to get at is how big is this problem? And
one can only assess how big the problem is if we get some sort
of an idea how many people are affected by this, because it seems
that the most highly inconvenient way of setting up an agency
is if people have to spend a night on the way back. But if you
could give us some idea of your experience since you set up the
Athens office—was that July?
Dr Beale: That was this autumn. In fact, literally
about a month ago, two months ago it was first opened. We have
not had any major meetings since then in there; we have had meetings
of various expert groups in the Athens office—two so far
since it opened—but next year we will be holding the Management
Board meeting there, and possibly the Permanent Stakeholders Group
meeting there, twice-yearly for both of those.
Chairman: That sounds a good start.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Presumably—it
is perhaps a little unfair to say this—the actual decision
to open the Athens office simply validates all the questions that
the Chairman has been putting to you.
Chairman: Exactly.
Q223 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
Because under normal circumstances it would not be a very useful
application of resources to have an office in Athens which is
simply there in order to provide meeting rooms. But clearly the
pressure from people who do not particularly like spending the
two nights that going to Heraklion necessitates has led to this
decision. So it is a kind of sticking plaster decision to what
I can only suggest was a somewhat hasty decision in the first
place as to the siting of the Agency.
Dr Helmbrecht: If I can make a remark. We tried
to avoid this problem in the past by having meetings somewhere
else in Europe.
Q224 Lord Hannay of Chiswick:
But then that is inconvenient for the staff of the Agency because
they have to be absent for substantial amounts of time.
Dr Helmbrecht: Then it is some kind of customer
orientation to say that we take the burden.
Q225 Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts:
I think this point has been largely covered but it is not only
the time wasted of visitors, it is the time wasted of valuable
senior staff going to Athens or going somewhere else. When you
give the additional evidence could you tell us what time would
you would have to leave your office in Heraklion to attend the
meeting at 10 o'clock this morning, if you had flown straight
from Heraklion? You would obviously have to overnight somewhere
but what was the latest time you could have left your office?
Dr Helmbrecht: I have to think because I came
from Paris last night. As Jeremy said, it is a very short way
to the airport; it is very easy to board; it is a 50-minute flight.
So sometimes if you take the time to go there, if you have a big
city and you have to go through the traffic, it can take longer
in the end. I can tell you the other way around because I know
that when I leave this evening I will be in the office tomorrow
at about 10 o'clock.
Q226 Chairman:
I think we have covered the ground and made the point. Thank you
very much for coming; you have come a very long way.
Dr Beale: It was no problem!
Chairman: We very much appreciate the
evidence you have given us and, as I said at the beginning, if
you wish to expand upon it we would be most obliged if you would
let us know as soon as possible. Thank you very much, that concludes
the meeting.
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