In this edition:  

Edito ‐ 2

Executive Committee 2010 ‐ 3

Oktoberfest October 2009 ‐4

ELS at the ICM in Siniai ‐ 6

Gala Ball in Vienna ‐ 8

ELS at the ICM in Malta ‐ 9

Events Calendar ‐ 11

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A third of 2010 has already gone and a lot of ELS events already occurred since the last newsletter: Oktoberfast, ICM in Sinaia, Gala

Ball in Vienna, ICM in Malta.

In this newsletter, you will find articles that really resumed the great times some of our members had there and we do hope that will

encourage you to participate to some of them; and you will find a full list of our future events on page 11.

If you have any suggestion about “The ELSsential”, we are eager to receive them as well as some contributions. So please send them to

editor@elslawyer.org

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23-25th of October 2009

Great ELS events are gatherings of friends who, even though they may have never met each other before, share more than just a few drinks together. They share an experience which cannot be described, you have to be there.

This Oktoberfest weekend, organised by the German ELS in Munich, was one such event. I am unable to describe the laughs we had, the toasts we made, the emotions we shared. Rather I will limit myself to describing the itinerary of this weekend and recommending that you go experience it personally!

The weekend opened on a bright Friday morning in October 2009 when a group of twenty or so us ELSA people, oldies and friends met outside a tent. Being one of the main tents hosting Munich’s Oktoberfestivities it was big, but nothing prepared us for the sight inside, and our group of old friends and soon-to-be friends was overwhelmed by the sight, smell and sound of a countless horde of people rowdily gulping down beer. What was, for me at least, impressive was how despite there being many more people than you would find in a Maltese town and despite all of them being utterly drunk, they remained organised, definitely more organised than a Maltese town at its most sober!

Luckily for us Jochen and Stephan had taken great steps to arrange a table where to sit and drink. From our vantage point with a roasted chicken in one hand and a jug of beer in the other we quickly lost all fear of the crowd and became a very happy bunch of friends chatting away as if we had known each other forever, and competing in outshouting the crowd with our traditional songs.

Beer after beer and song after song I lost all track of time and would have eventually collapsed of exhaustion hadn’t Jochen led us out to recover with a bite of food. It was a great recovery, and soon some of us decided to brave the beer horde again…

by Mark RefaloELS Member

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… We were saved some hours and many litres of beer later when the OC managed to find us despite the fact that we were drunk, lost and our mobile phones were barely functioning!

The next day was recovery day: off to see the beautiful monastery of Andecht, eat some traditional Bavarian food and taste the home liquor of the region, and burn off our hangovers and the weekend’s excesses with a long walk across the countryside. Despite my fears that we were utterly lost our guide led us (five hours later) straight to our restaurant where in time honoured tradition we first had to sit down to a seminar on energy law and recent legislative action introduced in Germany before being allowed to eat. In all honesty, the seminar sounded very interesting and the lecturer was enthusiastic about his topic however being the only non-German speaker I got to practice my look-interested-while-sleeping skills till the food came out. I needed that nap, it gave me strength to stock up on German beers on this my last night.

My last memory of the event is vaguely wandering around deserted streets with the others looking for a pub that was still open. I was lucky that we failed our mission since the next morning I had to be up early and rush off to the airport.

I am told that I missed a wonderful breakfast, I don’t know about this. What I do know is that I missed saying au revoir properly to some good friends. I hope to see them all again.

Who knows maybe at the next Oktoberfest?

23-25th of October 2009

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Or why the swine is more dangerous than the bear 29th October – 1st November 2009

By Robert TremelELS Member 

The autumn council meeting of ELSA took place in Sinaia, a small city (around 15.000 inhabitants) in the Carpathian Mountains about 120 km from Bucharest. It is named after the biblical mountain Sinai and was built around the Sinaia Monastery.

Even though it is still not scientifically proven, where the true mount Sinai is located, for sure Moses did not bring the ten commandments from this mountain in Romania, because he would have never reached the Israelites. Obviously this city is not only a winter paradise for tourist, but also a paradise for bears and a lot of signs in the woods warn against these animal inhabitants – but we proved to be stronger.

But – lets start with from the beginning …

At Thursday the gala ball took place in the famous Sinaia casino, a fancy building and a perfect place for the gala ball. It was also a wanted place for pictures as in the entrance hall pictures were taken all the time. It is a miracle in how many different groups one can split up a bunch of young people in order to take group pictures. Of course the seniors followed the example of the juniors and a group picture was made, in which you can also see three “new” ELS members from the International Board 2008/09.

The following day the morning was at our own disposal and so a small group of seniors took the cable car to explore the mountain Sinaia and the monastery. In the afternoon at the sightseeing with the juniors we also had the chance to see the beautiful Peles castle. It was built under King Carol I between 1873 and 1914. It is very impressive; how the architects combined the classical elements of a castle with “new” technology (e.g. a vacuum cleaning system is implemented).

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In the evening we finally had the chance to show the bear who is the king in Peles castle. Oana Pop, the OC member who perfectly took care of us, took us to a nice restaurant, in which bear meat was served in various ways. This new taste experience – at least for me – was accompanied by a known taste from the ELSA days, because Oana brought a huge bottle of Romanian national drink in an amount, that some persons at the table mistook it for water. Of course after the dinner we all went to bed (as we did during our ELSA days …).

At Saturday the ELS assembly meeting took place. Following a tried and tested ELSA tradition the assembly meeting started with a delay. Following another old ELSA tradition the assembly took much longer than expected. The exec was elected and the former exec continues its work, only the position of the SecGen is now held by the home coming queen Brigitte and Guido takes care for the national representatives. After dinner we joined the farewell party of the juniors, which took place in a gym and the people were supposed to wear a sporty outfit.

Sunday was the departure day – and as the Romanian bears did not find any victims, it was time for another usually harmless animal to attack. Some of us left in the morning, others wanted to leave in the afternoon. Around noon the hotel was closed because of the swine flu and those still at the hotel were not allowed to leave. Media reported of around 40 persons who caught the swine flu. ELSA was present in TV and newspaper. Some seniors also caught the flu, some didn’t, some of us had to prolong their stay in Romania for a day or two, but almost all of us had to prolong their absence from work involuntary.

I will check in Malta if everyone is really fine again as reported. And I am looking forward which animal is waiting for us there …

Or why the swine is more dangerous than the bear 29th October – 1st November 2009

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22 th – 24th of January 2011

By Kim RUBÆK ELS member 

In the fall Teresa and I saw an email about the upcoming ELSA-Vienna Ball. We quickly decided that it could be interesting to go. I had never been to Vienna, and Teresa had only passed through on one or two occasions.

We arrived in Vienna Friday at around noon. After some sightseeing Teresa and I had dinner in a restaurant before going to the ELS-gathering in the localities of the Club of the "Alt-Kalksburger" before the Ball. Franz Martin, who Teresa had met at the Salzburg PM in 1996, had organized food and drink, and we had some time to talk and get to know the other participants from ELS.

The ball took place in the Hofburg, which is the gigantic imperial palace in the centre of Vienna. The ball was organized by the agricultural students' association in Voralberg. The opening dances were folkdances, I suppose from Voralberg. After the opening dances the dance floor was free. Rather the dance floors. As the ball was in the Hofburg, the venue was very large with some 5-10 rooms for dancing and more than 30 rooms in total. There were perhaps 2-3000 participants in the ball. So the 16 ELS-participants were but a drop in the ocean.

From what I understood the dress code was relatively relaxed for a Viennese ball. Everybody was dressed up, but it was funny to see how "dressed up" can be interpreted in different ways. There were many men in smoking and women in long dresses. There were also many people dressed in traditional Austrian dirndl. But there were also many people just in suit and tie or people dressed up in different less traditional ways.

Saturday we did some more sightseeing. In the evening we had a very nice dinner in the Palmenhaus, where we met some ELS-people including some old ELS-friends that had not participated in the ball the night before. Sunday afternoon we flew back to Luxembourg after a wonderful weekend in Vienna.

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24th – 28th March 2010 By Marie‐France MEMETEAUExecutive Officer Editor / Publicationeditor@elslawyer.org

This spring ICM took place in Malta; which was something new, usually Malta organises Autumn ICM (1999 and 2005). For my second ICM in Malta (first in 1999), I was impatient to return there since the first one was really good. Now that it is over, I can tell that the OC did a wonderful job and we had such a great time in very nice places.

Most “seniors” arrived ever before Thursday (day of the start of the ELS program) or on Thursday beginning of afternoon, just on time to take part of the visit of La Valetta!. Despite the wind, we really enjoyed the visit of this beautiful fortified capital and we finished it by a great ice-cream that almost no-one could resist.

The Gala ball took place the same evening in Mdina, another beautiful city where first had a short visit of the town by a couple in typical costumes and some knights. A great dinner was served in a really nice restaurant and we went back to the hotel where the party in the basement lasted almost until sunrise.

On Friday, ELS had a special day of sightseeing which started with a typical Maltese lunch in Mgarr. Great food (typical Maltese rabbit), great place great people! On the afternoon, a nice little cruise of the “three cities” Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua which make the Great Harbour, made us discover the long and tumultuous history of Malta. Beautiful visit even though it was a bit chilly.

In the evening, we had some drinks and snacks on the roof of the Europe House in La Valetta. We were hosted by Julian Vassallo, ELS member, and we had the chance to meet lot of Maltese, former ELSA members, some of them with whom we shared experience few years back and others we met for the first time. It was hard to leave this great place and all these great people but we had to head to the Villa in Saint Julians to join the ELSA party!

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24th – 28th March 2010

Saturday morning was aimed to be serious as we had our extraordinary AM! At first, the OC of ICM Spring 2011 in Potsdam made a presentation on this anniversary ICM. Then as the quorum was there (Yippee!), we were able to ratify the minutes of Sinaia AM and all the decision taken there. Even though we started late, we were able to end our discussion on the future of ELS by one o’clock!

In the afternoon, some of us (about 9 people) wanted to go to visit Gozo and Michael Sullivan was a wonderful organizer: a minibus took us to the ferry and another one was waiting for us on the other side to visit the island. Unfortunately we were not able to go in Calypso's Cave - assumed by many to be the cave referred to by Homer in 'The Odyssey' – since it seemed there had been some movements of the ground and the cave was not secured enough. We headed to the closed sea and Dwejra: wonderful place where the sea had been strong enough to enter inside the cliff. The cliff is stunning with a huge arch and the sea was beautiful. We finished our visit of Gozo by the citadel of Victoria also called Rabat. Very impressive fortifications and a scenic church are the main points of this picturesque village.

We went back to the plenary right on time for the ELS “movie” made by Robert Tremel and for the presentation of ELS Exec.

The dinner was organized by Robert d’Alessandro in a very charming restaurant in St Julians and we finished our evening in an impressive nightclub in the last floor of the Portomaso Tower.

Sunday was for most people, the departure day and everybody felt sad to leave this great island where once more we had such a great time.

This time everyone went back home without any disease

Thanks to the OC and to our Maltese ELS members for the great organisation and their time!

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Events Calendar11th – 13th June 2010

German NCM and EAD AM, Gießen, Germany

The next German summer NCM will take place in Gießen from Thursday 10th to Sunday 13th of June. The alumni program shall start on Friday 11th. On Saturday 12,

the German alumni association EAD will have its annual assembly meeting. As you may know, the German NCM is one of the biggest ELSA events in the network,

comparable in size to an ICM and with as legendary parties. Lots of international guests and yes, Germans. While the youngsters will sweat in the workshops, we are

going to have BBQ, explore Gießen and recover from the already mentioned parties. In short, we'll have a great time (admittedly, the EAD-members are also supposed to

sweat a little bit in their AM). And the good thing is, Gießen is only 45 minutes by car north of Frankfurt/Main airport, so it is really easy to reach. We'll keep you posted on

the details.

18th – 20th June 2010

20th Anniversary of ELSA in the Czech Republic Prague, Czech Republic

More information on http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102543136458258

18th – 20th June 2010

Wine Tour Week End, Lyon, France

The program includes sightseeing in Lyon, dinners and lunch in French restaurants, and of course, a day of Wine Tour in Burgundy. For further details and application,

please contact editor@elslawyer.com

11th July 2010

Transition barbeque of ELSA International, Brussels Belgium

More information will be posted

18th – 25th July 2010

Law Summer School 2010 on EC Competition Law, Budapest, Hungary

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1st – 3rd October 2010

6th Annual Oktoberfest Event, Munich, Germany

For the 6th time, we invite you to join us for a true Bavarian weekend. Apart from the main event (the original Munich Oktoberfest), the weekend - as

every year - will be packed with things to do and see. But we will also provide ample time to relax and recover from a long day at the Oktoberfest

grounds.

Program includes: a day at the Oktoberfest (incl. reserved seats; we fought hard for them!!), a Bavarian dinner, - optional tours of Munich or Upper

Bavarian country site, accommodation in a real medieval castle.

Prices are 70€ for the program and additional 70€ for the optional accommodation. For visitors from further abroad we recommend to arrive on

Thursday evening, September 30, 2010 in order to fully enjoy Friday at the Oktoberfest.

Reserve your place early - demand is high (this is not a marketing thing, it's the truth!) For registration and information purposes please visit our

website http://oktoberfest.hoerlin.de.

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