A happy man!

 

Yesterday I was attending the Biannual Meeting of a small Intergovernmental organization of 13 member states of which four account for 80% of the regular contributions and 100% of the voluntary contributions, for a total of 99.99% of the total funds this organization spends in its annual budget.

 

We spent most of the afternoon session discussing a small increase in the salaries of the Directors of the four Research Centers whose activities are funded 100% by the four countries I mentioned earlier, all of them European.

 

For a couple of hours we had to listen to very opinionated delegates who had to take the floor a number of times each. And the four countries who pay for the activities, myself included, listened patiently to all this senseless ranting.

 

Now, why would a country whose total annual contribution to the organization doesn’t suffice to pay for the monthly salary of ONE of the Directors whose stipendium we were discussing, warrant the use of the floor of a reputable organization with lots of other things to discuss, I really wonder.

 

But I did discover something. I was thinking lately that I was growing old. I found out yesterday that I still have the will to fight in me. I grabbed the microphone and stated clearly that I supported the small increase, the first in over 5 years, and that my country would pay for the whole thing. That should keep them quiet, I thought.

 

One of the delegates came back to me saying that this was democracy at its best and that we had to listen to everyone’s opinion. I answered that, with all due respect, his country in no way accorded it citizens back home the right he was so strongly defending at the meeting and that he should perhaps have the humility to acknowledge that being loud and omnipresent does not make you right.

 

Last night, at a miserable little hotel in the middle of nowhere in a small town in Central Europe, I went to bed a happy man, and I slept soundly. I think I had deserved it!