Wim Duisenberg
Willem Frederik "Wim" Duisenberg was a Dutch Labour Party politician who served as the first President of the European Central Bank from 1998 to 2003. He served as President of the European Monetary Institute from 1997 to 1998, President of the Central Bank of the Netherlands from 1982 to 1997, Minister of Finance from 1973 to 1977, he was elected to the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1978. Duisenberg, an economist by occupation, worked for the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of the Netherlands from 1966 until 1970. Duisenberg became a professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam in 1970. After the Dutch general election of 1972 Duisenberg was asked by the Labour Party to become Minister of Finance in the Cabinet Den Uyl under Prime Minister Joop den Uyl. Duisenberg accepted and resigned as a professor the day the Cabinet Den Uyl was installed on 11 May 1973. Duisenberg remained Minister of Finance until the Cabinet Van Agt I was installed on 19 December 1977.
He was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives after Dutch general election of 1977, serving from 8 June 1977 until 8 September 1977 and from 16 January 1978 until 28 June 1978. After his secretaryship, Duisenberg worked for the Central Bank of the Netherlands from 1 August 1978 until 1 January 1982 when he became the President of the Central Bank of the Netherlands serving until 1 July 1997 when he became the President of the European Monetary Institute which became the European Central Bank. Duisenberg served as the first President of the European Central Bank from 1 July 1998 until 1 November 2003, he was instrumental in the introduction of the euro in the European Union in 2002. Duisenberg retired from active politics at the age of sixty-eight. Following the end of his active political career, Duisenberg occupied numerous seats on supervisory boards in the business and industry world and international non-governmental organizations. Duisenberg was known for his distinct Frisian accent and his abilities as an acclaimed financier and renowned economist were admired.
Willem Frederik Duisenberg was born on 9 July 1935 in the Frisian city of Heerenveen in the Netherlands. He was the son of Lammert Duisenberg, a waterworks supervisor, Antje Ykema, he went to a public primary school in his hometown. He went to secondary school, first one year of hogere burgerschool and gymnasium with natural sciences in Heerenveen. In 1954, Duisenberg moved to Haren, he studied at the University of Groningen in Groningen from 1954 to 1961, where he received his doctorandus degree cum laude in economics, majoring in international relations. He was a member of Groninger Studentencorps Vindicat atque Polit. In 1959, he became a member of the Labour Party. In 1960, he married Tine Stelling. In 1965, he obtained his doctor degree with his thesis De economische gevolgen van de ontwapening under the supervision of professor F. J. de Jong. Duisenberg subsequently worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D. C. for years followed by a year as an advisor to the director of the Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank in Amsterdam.
He was appointed a professor at the University of Amsterdam where he taught macroeconomics. From 1973 to 1977, Duisenberg was Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Joop den Uyl. Shortly afterwards, he gave up his seat in the Dutch parliament to become vice president of Rabobank, a Dutch bank. Two years he was appointed director of the Nederlandsche Bank, serving as its president from 1982 to 1997, his tenure at the Dutch central bank was marked by reserve. Under his direction, the Dutch guilder was linked to the German Deutsche Mark, this benefited the Dutch economy, owing to the strength of the German currency, he followed German central bank's interest rate policies which earned him the nickname "Mr Fifteen Minutes" because he followed any interest rate changes made by the Deutsche Bundesbank. Owing to the success of his monetary policy, he became well known in other European countries, this led to his appointment in 1998 as the first president of the new European Central Bank in Frankfurt, much to the chagrin of France, who wanted a French candidate.
A compromise was agreed upon whereby Duisenberg would serve for at least four years, upon which the Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet, director of the Banque de France, would take over. In 1999, Duisenberg received the Vision for Europe Award in recognition of his efforts toward the unification of Europe. During his tenure at the bank, Dr. Duisenberg was known for his cautious monetary policy and for defending the euro through its early years, he sometimes frustrated investors and politicians by sticking to the bank's inflation-fighting stance, keeping rates higher than some would have liked. "I hear, but I don't listen" to such pleas, was one of his blunt responses. Dr. Duisenberg said it was up to European governments to pursue structural changes such as loosening rigid rules on hiring and firing personnel if they wanted more growth. Duisenberg announced he would retire on 9 July 2003, but he remained in office until Trichet was cleared of charges of fraud in connection with the collapse of the French bank Crédit Lyonnais.
Trichet took over presidency of the ECB on 1 November 2003. Duisenberg died in 2005 at the age of 70 while on vacation at his villa in Faucon near Orange, France, he drowned in his swimming pool after suffering a heart attack. A commemoration service was held
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic known by its short-form name, Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with a temperate continental climate and oceanic climate, it is a unitary parliamentary republic, with 10.6 million inhabitants. Other major cities are Brno, Ostrava and Pilsen; the Czech Republic is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the United Nations, the OSCE, the Council of Europe. It is a developed country with an advanced, high income export-oriented social market economy based in services and innovation; the UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development. The Czech Republic is a welfare state with a "continental" European social model, a universal health care system, tuition-free university education and is ranked 14th in the Human Capital Index, it ranks as the 6th safest or most peaceful country and is one of the most non-religious countries in the world, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance.
The Czech Republic includes the historical territories of Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire. After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire along with the Kingdom of Germany, the Kingdom of Burgundy, the Kingdom of Italy, numerous other territories, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Beside Bohemia itself, the King of Bohemia ruled the lands of the Bohemian Crown, holding a vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. In the Hussite Wars of the 15th century driven by the Protestant Bohemian Reformation, the kingdom faced economic embargoes and defeated five consecutive crusades proclaimed by the leaders of the Catholic Church. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary.
The Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, eradicated Protestantism and reimposed Catholicism, adopted a policy of gradual Germanization; this contributed to the anti-Habsburg sentiment. A long history of resentment of the Catholic Church followed and still continues. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the German Confederation 1815-1866 as part of Austrian Empire and the Czech language experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. Czechoslovakia remained the only democracy in this part of Europe in the interwar period. However, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, while the Slovak region became the Slovak Republic.
Most of the three millions of the German-speaking minority were expelled following the war. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections and after the 1948 coup d'état, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed and market economy was reintroduced. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia; the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004. The traditional English name "Bohemia" derives from Latin "Boiohaemum", which means "home of the Boii"; the current English name comes from the Polish ethnonym associated with the area, which comes from the Czech word Čech. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, who brought them to Bohemia, to settle on Říp Mountain.
The etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning "member of the people. The country has been traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the east, Czech Silesia in the northeast. Known as the lands of the Bohemian Crown since the 14th century, a number of other names for the country have been used, including Czech/Bohemian lands, Bohemian Crown and the lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas; when the country regained its independence after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, the new name of Czechoslovakia was coined to reflect the union of the Czech and Slovak nations within the one country. After Czechoslovakia dissolved in 1992, the Czech part lac
Institutions of the European Union
The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision making bodies of the European Union. They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the Court of Auditors. Institutions are distinct from advisory bodies to the European Union, agencies of the European Union. Most EU institutions were created with the establishment of the European Community in 1958. Much change since has been in the context of shifting the balance of power away from the Council and towards the Parliament; the role of the Commission has been to mediate between the two or tip the balance. However the Commission is becoming more accountable to the Parliament: in 1999 it forced the resignation of the Santer Commission and forced a reshuffle of the proposed Barroso Commission in 2004; the development of the institutions, with incremental changes from treaties and agreements, is testament to the evolution of the Union's structures without one clear "master plan".
Some such as Tom Reid of the Washington Post said of the institutions that "nobody would have deliberately designed a government as complex and as redundant as the EU". The first institutions were created at the start of the 1950s with the creation of the ECSC, based on the Schuman declaration, between six states; the ECSC was designed to bring the markets of coal and steel, the materials needed to wage war, under the control of a supranational authority with the aim of encouraging peace and economic development. It established the first institutions. At its core was an independent executive called the "High Authority" with supranational powers over the Community; the laws made by the Authority would be observed by a Court of Justice in order to ensure they were upheld and to arbitrate. During the negotiations, two supervisory institutions were put forward to counterbalance the power of the High Authority; the "Common Assembly" proposed by Jean Monnet to act as a monitor, counterweight and to add democratic legitimacy was composed of 78 national parliamentarians.
The second was the Council of Ministers, pushed by the smaller states to add an intergovernmental element and harmonise national policies with those of the authority. In 1957 the Treaties of Rome established two similar communities, creating a common market and promoting atomic energy co-operation; the three institutions shared the Court of Justice and the Parliament, however they had a separate Council and High Authority, called the Commission in these Communities. The reason for this is the different relationship between the Council. At the time the French government was suspicious of the supranationalism and wanted to limit the powers of the High Authority in the new Communities, giving the Council a greater role in checking the executive; the three communities were merged in 1967, by the Merger Treaty, into the European Communities. The institutions were carried over from the European Economic Community. Under the Treaties of Rome, the Common Assembly was supposed to become elected; however this was delayed by the Council until 1979.
Since it gained more powers via successive treaties. The Maastricht Treaty gave further powers to the Council by giving it a key role in the two new pillars of the EU which were based on intergovernmental principles; the 2009 Lisbon Treaty brought nearly all policy areas under the codecision procedure, hence increasing the power of the Parliament. The rules for the distribution of seats in the parliament were changed to a formula system; the High Representative merged with the European Commissioner for External Relations and joined the Commission. The appointment of the Commission President became dependent upon the last EU elections; the Council of Ministers adopted more qualified majority voting and the European Council was made a distinct institution with a permanent president. The Court of Justice had adjustments. In addition, the central bank became a full institution. There are three political institutions which hold the legislative power of the Union; the Council of the European Union represents governments, the Parliament represents citizens and the Commission represents the European interest.
The Council of the European Union, Parliament or another party place a request for legislation to the Commission. The Commission drafts this and presents it to the Parliament and the Council of the European Union, where in most cases both must give their assent. Although the exact nature of this depends upon the legislative procedure in use, once it is approved and signed by both bodies it becomes law; the Commission's duty is to ensure it is implemented by dealing with the day-to-day running of the Union and taking others to Court if they fail to comply. The European Parliament shares the legislative and budgetary authority of the Union with the Council of the European Union, its 751 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage and sit according to political allegiance. They form the only directly elected body in the Union. Despite forming one of the two legislative chambers of the Union, it has weaker powers than the Council in some sensitive areas, does not have legislative initiative.
It does, however
President of the European Commission
The President of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. The President of the Commission leads a cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the college, collectively accountable to the European Parliament; the President is empowered to allocate portfolios amongst, reshuffle or dismiss Commissioners as necessary. The college directs the Commission's civil service, sets the policy agenda and determines the legislative proposals it produces; the President of the Commission represents the EU abroad, together with the President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The post was established in 1958; each new President is nominated by the European Council and formally elected by the European Parliament, for a five-year term. As of 2019, the current President is Jean-Claude Juncker, who took office on 1 November 2014, he is the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Juncker is the twelfth his First Vice-President is Frans Timmermans.
The present Commission was established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The Commission's first president was Walter Hallstein who started consolidating European law and began to impact on national legislation. National governments at first took little heed of his administration, with the President having to stamp the Commission's authority early on. With the aid of the European Court of Justice, the Commission began to be taken more seriously. In 1965 Hallstein put forward his proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy, which would give the Community its own financial resources while giving more power to the Commission and Parliament and removing the veto power over Agriculture in the Council; these proposals led to an immediate backlash from France. Hallstein knew the proposals would be contentious, took personal charge of drafting them, over-riding the Agriculture Commissioner; however he did gain the support of Parliament through his proposals to increase its powers, he presented his policy to Parliament a week before he submitted them to the Council.
He aimed to demonstrate how he thought the Community ought to be run, in the hopes of generating a wave of pro-Europeanism big enough to get past the objections of member states. However, in this it proved that, despite its past successes, Hallstein was overconfident in his risky proposals. In reaction to Hallstein's proposals and actions, then-French President Charles de Gaulle, sceptical of the rising supranational power of the Commission, accused Hallstein of acting as if he were a head of state. France withdrew its representative from the Council, triggering the notorious "empty chair crisis". Although this was resolved under the "Luxembourg compromise", Hallstein became the scapegoat for the crisis; the Council refused to renew his term, despite his being the most'dynamic' leader until Jacques Delors. Hallstein's work did position the Commission as a substantial power; the presidents were involved in the major political projects of the day in the 1970s, such as the European Monetary Union.
In 1970, President Jean Rey secured the Community's own financial resources and in 1977, President Roy Jenkins became the first Commission President to attend a G7 summit on behalf of the Community. However, owing to problems such as the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, economic hardship reduced the priority of European integration, with only the President trying to keep the idea alive; the member states had the upper hand, they created the European Council to discuss topical problems, yet the Council was unable to keep the major projects on track such as the Common Agricultural Policy. The Community entered a period of eurosclerosis, owing to economic difficulties and disagreements on the Community budget, by the time of the Thorn Commission the President was unable to exert his influence to any significant extent. However, the Commission began to recover under President Jacques Delors' Commission, he is seen as the most successful President, being credited with having given the Community a sense of direction and dynamism.
The International Herald Tribune noted the work of Delors at the end of his second term in 1992: "Mr. Delors rescued the European Community from the doldrums, he arrived. Although he was a little-known finance minister and former MEP, he breathed life and hope into the EC and into the dispirited Brussels Commission. In his first term, from 1985 to 1988, he rallied Europe to the call of the single market, when appointed to a second term he began urging Europeans toward the far more ambitious goals of economic and political union."But Delors not only turned the Community around, he signalled a change in the Presidency. Before he came to power, the Commission President still was a position of first among equals, his tenure had produced a strong Presidency and a strong Commission as the President became more important. Following treaties cemented this change, with the President being given control over the allocation of portfolios and being able to force the resignation of Commissioners; when President Romano Prodi took office with the new powers of the Treaty of Amsterdam, he was dubbed by the press as Europe's first Prime Minister.
President Delors' work had increased the powers of Parliament. However Commissions did not enjoy the same support, in 1999, the European Parliament used its powers to force the Santer Commiss
Hungary
Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres in the Carpathian Basin, it borders Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Austria to the northwest, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, Slovenia to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union; the official language is Hungarian, the most spoken Uralic language in the world, among the few non-Indo-European languages to be spoken in Europe. Hungary's capital and largest city is Budapest; the territory of modern Hungary was for centuries inhabited by a succession of peoples, including Celts, Germanic tribes, West Slavs and the Avars. The foundations of the Hungarian state were established in the late ninth century CE by the Hungarian grand prince Árpád following the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, his great-grandson Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000, converting his realm to a Christian kingdom. By the 12th century, Hungary became a regional power, reaching its cultural and political height in the 15th century.
Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. It came under Habsburg rule at the turn of the 18th century, joined Austria to form the Austro–Hungarian Empire, a major European power; the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed after World War I, the subsequent Treaty of Trianon established Hungary's current borders, resulting in the loss of 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, 32% of ethnic Hungarians. Following the tumultuous interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis Powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Hungary became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which contributed to the establishment of a socialist republic spanning four decades; the country gained widespread international attention as a result of its 1956 revolution and the seminal opening of its previously-restricted border with Austria in 1989, which accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. On 23 October 1989, Hungary became a democratic parliamentary republic.
Hungary is an OECD high-income economy and has the world's 58th largest economy by PPP. It ranks 45th on the Human Development Index, owing in large part to its social security system, universal health care, tuition-free secondary education. Hungary's rich cultural history includes significant contributions to the arts, literature, sports and technology, it is the 13th most popular tourist destination in Europe, attracting 15.8 million international tourists in 2017, owing to attractions such as the largest thermal water cave system in the world, second largest thermal lake, the largest lake in Central Europe and the largest natural grasslands in Europe. Hungary's cultural and academic prominence classify it as a middle power in global affairs. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and has been part of the Schengen Area since 2007, it is a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, NATO, WTO, World Bank, the AIIB, the Council of Europe, the Visegrád Group.
The "H" in the name of Hungary is most due to early founded historical associations with the Huns, who had settled Hungary prior to the Avars. The rest of the word comes from the Latinized form of Byzantine Greek Oungroi. According to an explanation,the Greek name was borrowed from Old Bulgarian ągrinŭ, in turn borrowed from Oghur-Turkic Onogur. Onogur was the collective name for the tribes who joined the Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled the eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars; the Hungarian endonym is Magyarország, composed of ország. The word magyar is taken from the name of one of the seven major semi-nomadic Hungarian tribes, magyeri; the first element magy is from Proto-Ugric *mäńć-'man, person' found in the name of the Mansi people. The second element eri,'man, lineage', survives in Hungarian férj'husband', is cognate with Mari erge'son', Finnish archaic yrkä'young man'; the Roman Empire conquered the territory west of the Danube between 35 and 9 BC. From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century, Pannonia was part of the Roman Empire, located within part of Hungary's territory.
Around AD 41–54, a 500-strong cavalry unit created the settlement of Aquincum and a Roman legion of 6,000 men was stationed here by AD 89. A civil city grew in the neighbourhood of the military settlement and in AD 106 Aquincum became the focal point of the commercial life of this area and the capital city of the province of Pannonia Inferior; this area now corresponds to the Óbuda district of Budapest, with the Roman ruins now forming part of the modern Aquincum museum. Came the Huns, a Central Asian tribe who built a powerful empire. After Hunnish rule, the Germanic Ostrogoths and Gepids, the Avar Khaganate, had a presence in the Carpathian Basin. In the 9th century, East Francia, the First Bulgarian Empire and Great Moravia ruled the territory of the Carpathian Basin; the freshly unified Hungarians led by Árpád, settled in the Carpathian Basin starting in 895. According to linguistic evidence, they originated from an ancient Uralic-speaking population that inhabited the forested area between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains.
As a federation of united tribes, Hungary was established in 895, some 50 years after the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun in 843, before the unification of the Anglo-Saxon king
Chairman
The chairman is the highest officer of an organized group such as a board, a committee, or a deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is elected or appointed by the members of the group, the chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an orderly fashion. In some organizations, the chairman position is called president, in others, where a board appoints a president, the two different terms are used for distinctly different positions. Other terms sometimes used for the office and its holder include chair, chairwoman, presiding officer, moderator and convenor; the chairman of a parliamentary chamber is called the speaker. The term chair is sometimes used in lieu of chairman, in response to criticisms that using chairman is sexist, it is used today, has been used as a substitute for chairman since the middle of the 17th century, with its earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary dated 1658–1659, only four years after the first citation for chairman.
Major dictionaries state that the word derives from a person. A 1994 Canadian study found the Toronto Star newspaper referring to most presiding men as "chairman", to most presiding women as "chairperson" or as "chairwoman"; the Chronicle of Higher Education uses "chairman" for men and "chairperson" for women. An analysis of the British National Corpus found chairman used 1,142 times, chairperson 130 times and chairwoman 68 times; the National Association of Parliamentarians adopted a resolution in 1975 discouraging the use of “chairperson” and rescinded it in 2017. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and United Press International all use "chairwoman" or "chairman" when referring to women, forbid use of "chair" or of "chairperson" except in direct quotations. In World Schools Style debating, male chairs are called "Mr. Chairman" and female chairs are called "Madame Chair"; the FranklinCovey Style Guide for Business and Technical Communication, as well as the American Psychological Association style guide, advocate using "chair" or "chairperson", rather than "chairman".
The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style suggests that the gender-neutral forms are gaining ground. It advocates using "chair" to refer both to women; the Telegraph style guide bans the use of both "Chair" and "Chairperson" on the basis that "Chairman" is correct English. The word chair can refer to the place from which the holder of the office presides, whether on a chair, at a lectern, or elsewhere. During meetings, the person presiding is said to be "in the chair" and is referred to as "the chair". Parliamentary procedure requires that members address the "chair" as "Mr. Chairman" rather than using a name – one of many customs intended to maintain the presiding officer's impartiality and to ensure an objective and impersonal approach. In the United States, the presiding officer of the lower house of a legislative body, such as the House of Representatives, is titled the Speaker, while the upper house, such as the Senate, is chaired by a President. In his 1992 State of the Union address, then-U.
S. President George H. W. Bush used "chairman" for men and "chair" for women. In the British music hall tradition, the Chairman was the master of ceremonies who announced the performances and was responsible for controlling any rowdy elements in the audience; the role was popularised on British TV in the 1960s and 1970s by Leonard Sachs, the Chairman on the variety show The Good Old Days."Chairman" as a quasi-title gained particular resonance when socialist states from 1917 onward shunned more traditional leadership labels and stressed the collective control of soviets by beginning to refer to executive figureheads as "Chairman of the X Committee". Vladimir Lenin, for example functioned as the head of Soviet Russia not as tsar or as president but in roles such as "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR". Note in particular the popular standard method for referring to Mao Zedong: "Chairman Mao". In addition to the administrative or executive duties in organizations, the chairman has the duties of presiding over meetings.
Such duties at meetings include: Calling the meeting to order Determining if a quorum is present Announcing the items on the order of business or agenda as they come up Recognition of members to have the floor Enforcing the rules of the group Putting questions to a vote Adjourning the meetingWhile presiding, the chairman should remain impartial and not interrupt a speaker if the speaker has the floor and is following the rules of the group. In committees or small boards, the chairman votes along with the other members. However, in assemblies or larger boards, the chairman should vote only when it can affect the result. At a meeting, the chairman only has one vote; the powers of the chairman vary across organizations. In some organizations the chairman has the authority to hire staff and make financial decisions, while in others the chairman only makes recommendations to a board of directors, still others the chairman has no executive powers and is a spokesman for the organization; the amount of power given to the chairman depends on the type of organization, its structure, the rules it has created for itself.
If the chairman exceeds the given authority, engages in misconduct, or fails to perform t
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
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