New president for FIEC

Thomas Schleicher has been elected president of FIEC (the European Construction Industry Federation) for the 2012 to 2014 period, succeeding Luisa Todini at the end of her statutory term of office.

A civil engineer by training, Mr Schleicher is CEO of his family-owned medium-sized company, Michael Gärtner, which is based in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany.

His company specialises in road and infrastructure construction as well as turnkey solutions for buildings and restoration of historical buildings.

Mr Schleicher has, for some time, represented the interests of the construction industry in key positions, both nationally and at EU level, as board member of the German Construction Industry Federation (HDB), and since 2010 as vice-president of FIEC and president of the Social Commission.

Alongside Mr Schleicher, FIEC has also elected a new steering committee, including Italians Duccio Astaldi, who is representative for EIC (European International Contractors) and Paolo Astaldi, representative for Italy. Emre Aykar, chairman of Istanbul-based Yapi Merkezi, is representative for Turkey.

Michel Buro from Switzerland is representative for the group covering Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Frank Dupré is representative for Germany, while Jacques Huillard is representative for France.

Bulgarian Venelin Terziev is representative for the group for Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Romania. Kjetil Tonning from Norway is representative for the group for Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

Néstor Turró from Spain is representative for Spain and Portugal, while Johan Willemen from Belgium will represent Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.