The European area council will meet in Oradea, Romania, from August 18 to 23 next year. On the two days before the council, participants will visit congregations of the host church, the Reformed Church in Romania.

The main theme of the council will be "Life in fullness: Global vision, local action". We have chosen this theme to express our solidarity with the 24th general council (Accra, 2004) and we hope that Oradea will make a contribution to Accra.

At the same time, we will use the area council to discuss our specific European questions. Therefore we have chosen four subthemes: a) Covenanting for justice in the economy and the earth; b) Coping with the past; c) Minorities; and d) Global vision - local action.

European area committee, Malaga, March 2001

In response to complaints from member churches about the costs and difficulties of sending large delegations to too many ecumenical meetings, we have decided to hold a smaller area council, with just two delegates from each church. To help with the familiar problems of balance (age, gender, ordination), churches will also be free, if they wish, to send an additional observer with full speaking rights; and a second observer where one of their delegates is thirty or under. We are asking churches in choosing their delegates to keep in mind the need to elect a broadly-based European area committee with twenty members.

The leadership of the Conference of European Churches turned down our proposal to hold the area council in conjunction with the next CEC general assembly, now scheduled for Norway (where we don't have a member church) in June 2003.