ECSA Presidency Handed Over to Panagiotis Laskaridis
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA) has held its Board of Directors’ meeting and Niels Smedegaard of Danish Shipping and CEO of DFDS handed over ECSA Presidency to Panagiotis Laskaridis, Member of the Board of the Union of Greek Shipowners and CEO of Laskaridis Shipping and CEO of Lavinia Corp.
Panagiotis will start his two-year term as ECSA’s new President from January 2018. Smedegaard will remain Board Member representing Danish Shipping.
“I am very pleased of this trust, and committed to focus the European shipping agenda on shipowning matters, work with stakeholders for an efficient, competitive and future oriented European shipowning community’’, Laskaridis said.
Martin Dorsman Secretary General of ECSA said: “We look forward to working closely with Laskaridis and welcome his profound expertise and experience of the global shipping sector”.
Claes Berglund of the Swedish Shipowners and Director Public Affairs and Sustainability, from Stena AB will start as ECSA’s Vice-President in January. “I feel honoured of this appointment and look forward to supporting ECSA’s work. Shipping is dependent on a strong EU with a clear focus and we need to ensure an open market and free trade”, he commented.
Dorsman thanked on behalf of the Board and ECSA staff Niels Smedegaard for steering ECSA the last two years through intense discussions and reaching unanimous positions. “The excellent chairmanship of Niels Smedegaard stands out even more taken into account the very challenging circumstances for shipowners the last years”, he said.
“Combining environmental improvements with maintaining the competitive position of EU shipowners is a real achievement. I’m really pleased that Mr. Smedegaard will continue to contribute to the ECSA Board discussions the coming years”, Martin Dorsman concluded.