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- We call our organisation UNI Europa Commerce. It should in fact be UNI Commerce Europa.

Jörgen Hoppe made a strong case for work in the sector when he addressed the UNI-Europa Conference in Stockholm. "We need an even more independent profile", he said, adding that the new steering group will be working towards this end: "My members are first and foremost commercial workers".

Jörgen Hoppe of HK Handel in Denmark was elected by an unanimous UNI-Europa Commerce Conference in Stockholm as the new president of the sector. He succeeds Hubert Gartz of ver.di, Germany, who retired.

The new president identified the European social dialogue, the continued support for organising and the work with multinational retailers and wholesalers as key areas of future work:

"The social dialogue is an important tool for us, in forcing the European Commission to focus on commerce as an important sector which contributes strongly to the European economy and employs some 20 million people in the European Union."

"Even if EuroCommerce is slow to conclude more and larger agreements in the social dialogue, I consider it important to continue", Jörgen Hoppe said. " I don't think that governments and authorities in all countries take commerce seriously enough. It is therefore important for us also on the European level to make sure that we get the necessary attention."

Jörgen Hoppe does not believe that we will have European collective agreements in the near future, as there are still many structural and legal problems involved:

"But this does not mean that we should stick our heads in the sand as just another ostrich. No, on the contrary we have to find out how we can increase the exchange of information between our trade unions so that we are better prepared for our collective bargaining rounds at home."

"We have to know about demands and results in other countries. In this way we can make sure that we give a match to the employers, who work on a regional basis and who have access to such information both regionally and globally."

More than two thirds of all HK Handel members work for multinationals, Jörgen Hoppe told the Conference:

"This poses new challenges for us as a trade union. We have to be able to serve members whose employer is not Danish. Thus, the solidarity which we have always been proud of in our European and world-wide organisations takes on a completely new and different meaning", he said, adding that this is an important challenge for UNI-Europa Commerce.

Jörgen Hoppe considers that Europe must continue to be open to the rest of the world:

"With globalisation, none of us can afford to see Europe as an isolated part of the world. In UNI-Europa Commerce we must therefore continue our good cooperation with trade unions outside Europe. We must continue to implement the conclusions from last years Commercial Workers' Summit in Sydney. On the world level, we must work for a continued development of the global social dialogue within the ILO."