It would of course also be useful to have more members.

We try to attract more countries by visiting them during their general national meetings, where we present EPPA and its goals, trying to convince them of the importance of a pan-European Association to represent our wonderful industry.


Last week, you made a first application to Brussels for EU Commission grants for research and development. Can you already reveal what the reactions were?

Well, during this initial stage we are happy that our application was approved as an application: there were hundreds of organisations queuing up, but we managed to pass the first round. It tells us something about the recognition we deserve as an industry. Let?s hope for a positive reaction: we expect to hear the outcome by the end of May.


Would you outline what other activities EPPA is planning in the near future?

We identified the following as being one of the critical goals and objectives of EPPA: To project the industry to users as being professional, efficient, environmentally friendly and socially conscious. After several internal discussions and a lot of assistance from a few of our involved stakeholders, we had reached the point of taking this objective to the next level in the form of a dedicated program. We have created an action plan covering 2011 and the first half of 2012 to kick off the change in the perception of our industry. The scope of this program is very ambitious and it will push a rigorous change. This will be achieved in two ways: Firstly, by creating a positive attitude towards promotional products by focusing on their effectiveness and secondly by creating a positive attitude by fulfilling the industry standards regarding social and environmental compliance. This combination will boost the reputation of our industry in a positive way and we aim to make this tangible by achieving 10% annual growth in turnover.

Till Barth spoke to Hans Poulis.