Van de Sande elected AREA president

GREECE: Coen van de Sande, director of Dutch association NVKL, was elected president of European contractors’ group AREA at the association’s general assembly in Athens this week.

Marco Buoni, general secretary of Italy’s Associazione Tecnici del Freddo, steps down after four years in the role, taking the position of former president with an international affairs mandate.

Grzegorz Michalski of KFCh, Poland becomes the new vice president and joining the board are Espen Rønning of Norwegian association VKE and Stepan Stojanov of CHKT, Czechia. Thanos Biris of Hellas Union, Greece, maintains his position on the board, along with Seamus Kerr, president of the Institute of Refrigeration Ireland as AREA treasurer, and Claire Grossmann as secretary general.

Established in 1989, AREA represents 25 national associations from 22 countries representing 13,000 companies employing 110,000 people and with an annual turnover approaching €23bn.