The European Elevator Association (ELA) Annual Conference and General Assembly, of which our association AYSAD is a Category A member, was held in Istanbul on May 16-17.
ELA Secretary General Luca Pezzini;
“Dear guests, speakers, ladies and gentlemen, good morning everyone
After the safety and maintenance conference held in Lucerne last year, we can finally meet again in this wonderful place.
Thank you to our member AYSAD. It is definitely a great pleasure to be with you here today and we have a lot on our hands.
Welcome to this event supported by the European Elevator Association, of which I am proud to be the general secretary,” he said, opening the conference.
ELA President Roberto Zappa, who took the floor later, said,
“As the President of the European Elevator Association, we thank you all for being here with us again.
I am really happy to be here with you again on our 26th anniversary.
We celebrated it in Lucerne last year. A beautiful goal for our 25 years of existence.
And a lot of time has passed since the bridges that connected us to the industry.
We are in this beautiful and historical city, like the bridges that connect Europe and Asia.
I am really happy to have the honor of being here with you once again.
We are a European Union, so this year we fulfilled the requirements of the representation we presented to the European delegation in Türkiye. We are bringing.
So let me thank Mr. Dominik Olewinski.
We are renewing 705 members of the European Parliament in the European elections that will take place in the coming weeks.
So it ultimately represents 450 million people in Europe.
Therefore, considering the change that will soon take place, we have decided not to include European parliamentarians.
Hatice Sözer, representing Istanbul University, is a highly respected and qualified professor who will introduce us to the main topic of the day.
As you can see on the screen, the transition to sustainability is being made with particular reference to applications in the construction sector.
Of course, I would like to express my gratitude to all ELA representatives in this hall, from the organizers of the event to the committees and working group members, who have always been very active and helpful in ELA, for their contributions.
So I want to thank everyone and I hope you enjoy this long day,” he said.
AYSAD President Oğuzhan Bulgurluoğlu said in his speech, “We are in a very beautiful city. I hope you liked it too. We are very happy to host the general assembly of the European Elevator Association and its conference with an important topic titled “Sustainability”. AYSAD is 52 years old and ELA, of which we are a member, is a sectoral non-governmental organization that is 26 years old. I think the density of elevator work in Istanbul is one of the few points that is much more advanced than in Europe. Of course, unlike economy, democracy or football.
There will be an important event that will last two days in Istanbul today and tomorrow. Before continuing, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Zappa, the President of ELA. He has been a great driving force for the work related to the elevator industry. I would like to thank Mr. Zappa for his cooperation and contributions with us. I hope that the meeting in Istanbul during these two days will be the occasion for satisfying discussions, valuable connections and unforgettable experiences. I welcome you to Istanbul again and invite you to embark on a journey in Istanbul with its rich history on the subject of “sustainability”. “I thank you all for being here,” he said.
After the speech, AYSAD President Oğuzhan Bulgurluoğlu, our former president Sefa Targıt and board member Savaşal Sayın presented a plaque of appreciation to ELA President Roberto Zappa.
Later, the European Union Dominik Olewinski, who participated from Ankara on behalf of the delegation, said the following in his speech:
“Dear guests, members of the European Elevator Association and also leading members of the Turkish member organization AYSAD. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very happy to be here. I would also like to thank ELA for the invitation.
Unfortunately, I do not live in this beautiful city.
I come from Ankara, but it is not a very long way to get here.
Especially for such an important issue as “sustainability” today…
So I would like to make a few statements from both the EU perspective and the perspective of the EU delegation in Ankara on the subject.
I hope it helps your discussion. As you know, the green and digital transition, sustainability, circularity or energy and efficiency have been around for a very long time.
At least in the last decade, we have been high on the agenda of both the European and Turkish business worlds, as we have started to face the negative effects of climate change.
Now this interest and momentum has accelerated even more.
And I believe that this is definitely happening for you and us, both in the EU and in Türkiye, when the European Green Deal was adopted in 2019.
I think the European stakeholders are here, but I am also sure that the Turkish stakeholders are very aware of the European Green Deal.
And it is a strategy that goes far beyond classical environmental or energy policies.
This is a new growth model, at least for the EU.
But we all know, we all watch the news, we all read the newspapers, and we all know that the developments regarding the geopolitical situation are not going well.
To put it mildly, this also makes the implementation of the European Green Deal more difficult.
So the key indicators, such as energy consumption, energy use, global greenhouse gas emissions, are not very promising.
They had to decline globally.
We know that this is challenging, but we need to remain objective, we need to strive to achieve the goal of combating climate change.
We also have a monitoring signal that reminds us that this is still very important because last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record.
It was also the year that global temperatures rose 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
You may know that this is an important threshold set by global policymakers, and I think it is clear that this is the case when addressing climate change, and it requires action.
So the transition to a climate-neutral and resource-efficient economy requires a fundamental change in technology, energy, economy, fiscal policies, finance and ultimately society as a whole.
The European Green Deal also addresses many aspects of the transition from agriculture to the environment, from batteries to chips, packaging and waste.
The strategy also includes many important steps on energy transition and energy efficiency.
Let me just give you two examples because I saw on the agenda that you will discuss them in more detail today.
One of these concrete initiatives is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which was adopted in 2024 and will provide a framework for member states to reduce energy emissions in buildings across the EU, from individual buildings to public buildings, schools, hospitals.
We should know that 40 percent of the energy used in the EU comes from buildings, from energy use in buildings, and 40 percent of the emissions.
The second very good example is something called eco-design for sustainable product regulation.
The political agreement was reached in December 2023, and this will also provide sustainability for almost all products except food and processed food products.
And I think we made a very good reminder about the short film.
We are a very important player in the global economy, a member of the G-20, and we are also in Turkey.
We are in Istanbul, a beautiful city.
So let me wrap up the topic with a few words, touching on the importance of sustainability in bilateral relations and the importance of bilateral relations between the EU and Turkey. The OPM delegation has been invited many times by Turkish stakeholders to join the Green Deal and our Turkish colleagues in both the public and private sectors.
You are very keen and motivated to follow the path of rapprochement with the EU on the Green Deal.
The Turkish government has taken many actions to address this issue by adopting the national Action Plan on the Green Deal and announcing the goal of zero emissions by 2053.
Therefore, Türkiye has an action plan for the Green Deal roadmaps for the decarbonization of sectors such as steel, aluminum, and cement, and a national emissions trading system is also in preparation.
We also hope that the climate law in the Turkish Grand National Assembly will be adopted soon and will provide Türkiye with concrete elements to overcome these challenges.
We also have a very important agreement on technical legislation thanks to the customs union between the EU and Turkey.
Turkey has already harmonized most of its product legislation, including permits.
This is very important for your sector and I am sure Turkey is aware of this. Turkey is also a full member of the European Organization for Standardization, such as CEN and CENELEC, and its compliance rate with European standards is quite high.
This should come as no surprise to you because the EU and Turkey have been in a customs union for almost 30 years, so there are no customs duties or tariffs in bilateral transactions between Turkey and the EU.
Exports should flow unhindered to Türkiye and other countries.
This is what we have experienced over the last 30 years, and it has benefited both partners significantly.
Turkey is the fifth largest exporter in the EU and shares these value chains.
The EU is committed to cooperating on Türkiye’s decarbonization and digitalization of its economy.
We are also making a significant financial contribution to this development in Türkiye.
That is why I had announced this before the meeting.
You may not know, but the fact that the EU delegation in Türkiye is the largest in the world reflects both the importance of this relationship and the support that the European Union provides to Türkiye’s development and sustainability.
To conclude very briefly, the relations between AYSAD in Türkiye and the European Elevator Association, and the holding of such meetings that focus on concrete issues like this, is something that we also very much support.
We believe in this and encourage it.
We believe that this kind of cooperation will help to voice concerns and priorities between EU and Turkish economic actors, both in the EU and Brussels, but also in Istanbul or Ankara, and can set an agenda for the business world for new developments from policy makers in the EU and Türkiye.
And I see that the conference you will be attending all day today touches on many of the issues I tried to emphasize to you.
Energy efficiency, sustainable and smart buildings, equal buildings, digitalization.
I wish you all the best for the conference.”
After the conference ended, a dinner was held for ELA members at the AKM Teras Restaurant on the evening of May 16, hosted by AYSAD and sponsored by the Asansör İstanbul Fair.
The day after the conference, on May 17, ELA’s General Assembly was held.
As a result of the General Assembly, the new ELA board members, including our association’s board member Mr. Savaşal Sayın, were as follows:
Mr. Willem Johannes Koster – ELA President
Mr. Lars Axel Gustafsson – ELA Vice President (one-year mandate)
Mr. Roberto Zappa
Mr. Savaşal Sayin
Mr. Olivier Rouvière
Mr. Antonio Perez Ruiz
Mr. George Jackson
Mr. Björn Kollmorgen
Mr. Kris Schockaert
Mr. Robert Wójcik,
Mr. Apostolos Kalyvas
Mr. Ari Ketonen
Mr. René Hermann
Mr. Achim Hütter
Mr. Angelo Fumagalli
Mr. Christophe Maureau
Mr Gerhard Alfred Schiffner
