Brand Activation Agreement - DOC

							                                                                              Place E. Flagey 7, bte 8
INTERGRAF                                                                     1050 Brussels
Newsflash                                                                     Tel: +32/ 2/ 230 86 46
                                                                              Fax: +32/ 2/ 231 14 64
                                                                              e-mail: bklose@intergraf.org
BRUSSELS                                                                      www.intergraf.org
FEBRUARY 2007


Table of Contents:
INTERGRAF........................................................................................................................... 1
Invitation to strategic seminar for European Commission study on Graphic Industry ............ 1
Running INTERGRAF Enquiries ............................................................................................. 2
INTERGRAF Calendar ............................................................................................................. 2
ENVIRONMENT .................................................................................................................... 2
European Energy Efficiency Improvement Project launched ................................................... 2
HEALTH & SAFETY ............................................................................................................ 3
European Commission communication on new health and safety strategy at work................. 3
NEWS ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Rise of demand for magazines in Russia .................................................................................. 4
SOCIAL AGENDA ................................................................................................................. 5
Intergraf attended Social Partners Conference on ECVET....................................................... 5
Green Paper on 'Modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century' ............. 6
EVENTS................................................................................................................................... 7
Separate events calendar with monthly Newsflash ................................................................... 7


INTERGRAF

Invitation to strategic seminar for European Commission study on Graphic Industry

Four “Focus Group” meetings for the European Commission (EC) study were held in
January/February, and the interviews of experts are currently taking place. Plans are
therefore made to have a large “Strategic Seminar” involving stakeholders from the printing
industry, the E&Y research team and the EC. The meeting will include a detailed
presentation by the consultant on the findings and conclusions reached so far. The Strategic
Seminar should be the opportunity for clarifications or for establishing additional needs of
information. It will also open the debate to resulting actions and follow up.

The meeting will be held at the “Breydel” building of the EC in Brussels on the 2 May 2007
All member federations are welcome to participate with their representative, and the
invitation has been sent out recently by e-mail. Please give us your registration to the
seminar, by e-mail or fax, before 6 April. For questions please contact Anne-Marie de
Noose.



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Running INTERGRAF Enquiries

Delocalisation Study
On-line questionnaire          -Collection of e-mail addresses and of geographical localizations
                               of companies within the printing industry. 2-3 names of each
                               company is appreciated.
                               It is still possible to contribute with contacts!
Print Sells Campaign
                               Direct Marketing: Comments from members have been collected
                               and given to the creators.
                               Media: First draft to be distributed
                               Brand activation: First draft to be distributed
                               Corporate communications: First draft to be distributed

INTERGRAF Calendar

Meetings 2007
Month           Day            Event
March           7-9            AdPrint 2007 – Vilnius, Lithuania
March           8              INTERGRAF Board Meeting – Vilnius, Lithuania
March           9              INTERGRAF seminar “Meet the European Printing Industry” for
                               Baltic and Eastern European printers and associations
                               – Vilnius, Lithuania
May             2              Strategic Seminar of EC study – Brussels, Belgium
June            8-9            INTERGRAF General Assembly – Helsinki, Finland
September       1-4            INTERGRAF Directors Conference



ENVIRONMENT

European Energy Efficiency Improvement Project launched

On 26 January 2007 the European Energy Efficiency Improvement (EEEI) Project had its
kick-off meeting in Amstelveen (The Netherlands). During the meeting partners from 8
organizations in Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece and The Netherlands discussed
the goals, organization and work of the project.

The results of the project must be a direct, yearly energy efficiency of 35.000 GJ, an
emission reduction of 2.455 tons of CO2 and a saving of energy costs of 500.000 Euro, to be
realized in a hundred graphic media SME’s in five European countries. The main objective
of the European Energy Efficiency Improvement (EEEI) project is to remove barriers for
SME’s in the European Graphic Media Industry to energy efficiency by making energy use
and costs visible and promoting reduction of energy use and costs of SME’s.

The project work consists of an inventory and assessment of energy efficiency, barriers for
energy efficiency improvement and finding best practice within SME’s in the Industry in the
partner-countries. Furthermore, developing and testing a set of tools for assessment and
benchmarking, training of energy experts and consultancy of SME’s on energy efficiency
and measures on reducing energy consumption.



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The project was initiated by Energy Experts International B.V. in Huissen in The
Netherlands and is co-financed by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European
Union. Project partners in the five European countries are: KVGO Dienstencentrum (NL),
Bergische Universität Wuppertal (D), Handwerkskammer Münster (D), Enviros (CZ), Heves
Country Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HU), Athens Technical Educational Institute
(GR) and Energo Group SA (GR). The project will last 27 months and end in March 2009.
Dissemination of project results will take place by publications, project website, in national
workshops and on the European conference.

Intergraf had a meeting with EEI and Dienstencentrum in February to discuss possible co-
operations in connection to this project. Saving energy is highly relevant for printers in the
light of the European Commission study on competitiveness as well as the current
discussions on reducing CO2 emissions, taking place on both European and global level. The
fact that this is an industry initiative makes it even more important, and is an excellent way
of showing the industry’s intention for development and innovation in the environmental
area.

Intergraf will keep close contact with the project representatives, and keep members
informed of the progress. Intergraf is also looking into different opportunities when a
presentation and panel discussion could be held with members on this topic.


HEALTH & SAFETY

European Commission communication on new health and safety strategy at work

On 21 February a Communication was published which outlined measures planned by the
European Commission (EC) and to be integrated in their 2007-2012 Strategy on health and
safety at work.

While recognizing that significant improvements were made over the last years (17%
decrease in accidents on the work place during the period 2000/2004), the document still
identifies areas for improvement, particularly among : young workers, older workers or less
secured categories of workers involved in special employment contracts like self-employed,
outsourcing, short-time contracts etc.

Specific illnesses are on the rise, including musculoskeletal diseases – such as back pain,
joint injuries and repetitive strain injuries. The EU Strategy will also aim at ensuring
adequate coordination with REACH requirements.

The new strategy for 2007-2012 aims to achieve an overall 25% reduction of occupational
accidents and diseases in the EU. It sets out a series of actions at European and national
levels relating to the following main areas:

• Improving and simplifying existing legislation and enhancing its implementation in
practice through non-binding instruments such as exchange of good practices, awareness-
raising campaigns and better information and training




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• Defining and implementing national strategies adjusted to the specific context of each
Member State. These strategies should target the sectors and companies most affected and
fix national targets for reducing occupational accidents and illness.

• Mainstreaming of health and safety at work in other national and European policy areas
(education, public health, research) and finding new synergies

• Better identifying and assessing potential new risks through more research, exchange of
knowledge and practical application of results.

The EC plans the setting up of adequate promotional and follow up measures to identified
needs.

The document mentions rather broad measures, difficult to assess for our sector. It mentions
a dedicated programme PROGRESS to work with the existing Advisory Committee on H&S
at work, ACSH to draw up practical guides on the current application of existing Directives,
and make them better adapted to SMEs.

Under item 4.2 the document refers to REACH (the new chemicals strategy) and the need to
define the role of inspection authorities. During the consultation period on REACH it was
perceivable that REACH would bring new needs in the field of H&S.

All this work should enable the Commission to evaluate the need for additional measures,
such as a Recommendation to be addressed to Member States.

The communication is available in EN, FR and DE under the following link:
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/emplweb/news/news_en.cfm?id=209


NEWS

Rise of demand for magazines in Russia

Moscow is the main market for advertising and media industry. Although the main
demographic trend is depopulation and the percentage of people over 50 years of age lies by
30%, there are also positive developments that might foster the demand for magazines: 80%
of the working population have secondary or higher education and due to the continuing
growth of the Russian economy, which had started after the economic crisis in 1998, the
population’s well-being has substantially improved.

The percentage of the population reading magazines lies at 90% in the urban area and at 60%
in the rural areas. It is clear that magazines with women as their target group clearly sell the
strongest. Furthermore, general interest titles, men’s magazines and motor titles are read
from about 20% of the urban population and from 5 to 8% of the rural population. As far as
business magazines are concerned, the most successful ones are weeklies. The market is very
competitive and many new titles are launched regularly, however not all manage to establish
themselves on the Russian market. At the moment there are about 60 international magazines
being published through joint ventures, license agreement or content syndication.




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A specific Russian peculiarity is that advertising in magazines is much more successful than
in newspapers. This is due to the unreliability of the distribution network, which can be
explained by the fact that the vast Russian territory cannot yet be effectively supplied.
Another reason is that newspapers do not reach the level of circulation of magazines.
Another interesting feature of the Russian market is the copy distribution system, which does
not oblige the distributor to return unsold copies to the publisher. Therefore advertisers and
publishers rely on readership numbers instead of circulation data when planning campaigns
and media jobs.

In order to deal with the fierce competition publishers are generally investing in better
printing technologies and methods to improve the system of distribution. Like this they hope
to be able to compete with other media for revenues and audiences. The internet poses a
special threat in this context, but publishers hold against it with online services, trying to use
it as a complementary medium. Despite the challenges, the outlook for the magazine branch
is positive as most magazines are expected to further grow in the coming years.

Source: FIPP Magazine World


SOCIAL AGENDA

Intergraf attended Social Partners Conference on ECVET

On the 12-13 February European Social Partners were invited to CEDEFOP (The European
Centre for the development of Vocational Training) in Thessaloniki, Greece, to learn more
about and discuss ECVET (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training).
Participants in the conference included representatives of the European Commission, experts
and social partners from all over Europe. The European Commission launched a public
consultation on the ECVET system in November 2006, and the consultation process is now
ongoing in all member states.

The conference aimed at discussing the possible added value of ECVET for enterprises and
workers, and to learn about its technical specifications and possible implementation in
member states.

ECVET aims at facilitating mobility in Vocational Education and Training allowing people
to transfer learning results from one country to another in concordance with national
regulations. It is a system for the accumulation and transfer of credit points in vocational
education and training, enabling the documentation and certification of learning success
gained across “system borders” and is in this way promoting the concept of lifelong learning.

A positive view of this new system was displayed by most partners at the conference.
Representatives from UEAPME and BUSINESSEUROPE expressed their support for the
system, as it promotes and validates the concept of vocational training as an important form
of higher education in Europe.

However, concerns were raised on the utilisation of the credit points as this could move the
focus away from the learning outcome to focus on factors such as the duration of the
training. This could endanger the benefits of vocational training which should focus on
actual learning results of the training.


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For enterprises the benefits were recognised by employers’ federations to be increased
transparency as well as improved management of skills and human capital within a company.
Areas to look at more carefully and where the Commission needs to be more specific, is how
to recognise informal training in companies, as well as the units and credit points system
which is vague today.

Another issue discussed was the large differences between different European countries in
the management and recognition of VET. Some countries, such as Austria, have no common
national system for validating and recognising VET, and thus ECVET may become a new
administrative burden for companies and SMEs in particular. At the same time, the benefits
of the ECVET system can be significant for these countries. Other countries, such as France,
already have national systems, and thus the benefits of a new system are not so clear. In
these countries similar systems are already a part of companies’ daily routine, and ECVET
would not add to their administrative burdens.

The final conclusions of the conference were that a system such as the ECVET could
improve competitiveness of European companies and create a European labour market. The
stakeholders at the conference agreed that focus for discussions should be on How? rather
than If? and that it is important that this results in a simple tool that increases transparency,
rather than creates more bureaucracy.


Green Paper on 'Modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century'

At the end of last year The European Commission DG Employment and Social Affairs
issued a new Green Paper which is intended as a brain storming exercise on how European
labour law should be modernized, and better support the objectives of the European Council
to mobilise all appropriate national and Community resources to promote a skilled, trained
and adaptable workforce and labour markets responsive to the challenges stemming from the
combined impact of globalisation and of ageing in European societies.

The introduction pages to the document explain that European labour markets face the
challenge of combining greater flexibility with the need to maximize security for all. The
drive for flexibility in the labour market has given rise to increasingly diverse contractual
forms of employment, which can differ significantly from the
standard contractual model3 in terms of the degree of employment and income security and
the relative stability of the associated working and living conditions. With 4 out of 10 EU
workers now on non-standard contracts or self-employed, reality is rapidly outpacing
regulation in the European workplace.

The discussion paper asks Member States, employers and workers' representatives how
labour law at EU and national level can help the job market become more flexible while
improving security for workers (the 'flexicurity' approach). In particular, the Commission
expects to receive responses from national authorities, trade unions and employers'
organisations, as well as the general public. An internet consultation is running until 31st
March 2007. if you would like to participate, a link to the consultation document can be
obtained from Anne-Marie de Noose.




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We assume that Member Federations are following the subject via their national
confederations of employers. Intergraf remained so far faithful to its policy of low
involvement in labour policy at European level. We feel however that the theme of
flexicurity is also quite relevant for the printing industry which has been investigating, via its
collective agreement consultations, ways to achieve improved flexibility in several areas.
Intergraf would therefore be quite pleased to circulate among members, positions which are
adopted at national level in other countries. The underpinning issue at stake is to define
whether there is a need for formal employment contracts at European level. Flexibility in the
labour market is however crucial to job creation.



EVENTS

Separate events calendar with monthly Newsflash

Starting in February 2007, Intergraf is producing a separate calendar for events and
exhibitions in the Graphic Industry, sent out together with the Newsflash each month. This
calendar has appeared earlier in the Intergraf history, but was abandoned in favour of a
shorter version integrated in the Newsflash.

We would like to encourage all members to inform us of events in your country, and we will
gladly integrate them in our calendar. The intention is to make the calendar accessible on
Intergraf’s website and members’ extranet. This is expected to be finalised by the second
half of 2007.




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