FELCA Europe meeting in Malaga Increase membership, plan joint actions

During Alphe Malaga, in mid-January, the presidents of many European agent associations that are part of Felca met: Oscar Porras and Juan Manuel Elizalde for ASEPROCE (Spain), Julia Richter for FDSV (Germany), Eren Goker for UED (Turkey), Pascal Carrè, vice president of FELCA and president of FELCA Europe for ABELIO (Belgium) and Paolo Barilari, president of Felca, for IALCA (Italy).

Objectives of the meeting to participate in joint actions between European associations that can also benefit the whole of Felca and acquire new members.

During the Malaga workshop many agencies met with Felca, and among these many showed interest in the Federation’s activity by declaring their willingness to try to form an association of agencies in their countries. Among these are Albania, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Poland…

Felca Europe members also talked about the European standard for study travel providers, EN 14804-2005. ASEPROCE and FDSV have adopted it and have written their own guidelines based on the European standard. ASEPROCE delegates the audit of its members to a private auditing company, Lloyd’s, while FDSV entrusts the work to an independent committee.

It was also decided to contact a lobbying firm based in Brussels to obtain information and key contacts within the European Commission so that all members of the Association better know the potential within European projects. The task of the lobbying firm should be to identify funding opportunities for the European FELCA associations.  Finally, there was also talk of a possible European certification for study abroad consultants and of a course based on the model of the one already produced by JAOS (Japan) and TIECA (Thailand).