Board of RtDE members, and non-member RtD-societies in Europe,

Yes, we had been preparing to hold a meeting in May this year (2020) at Bergen aan Zee, the place where RtDE was founded in 1993. Unfortunately, the many restrictions arising from Covid-19 prevented this.

Now we have an option at the same place for 7-9 November 2020, the first weekend in November. In case travelling & meeting then are still not allowed, we can postpone it to May 2021, or another date.

I am pleased to think that the importance of RtDE is so vital for all societies that we can expect many participants when we do meet.

In the meantime, according to the constitution, we can carry out all the required procedures for an orderly meeting.

We still have our miserable feelings on what happened in Brussels. We were very frustrated, yes, almost paralysed, but now we are heading forward again!

Of all people, it was Isabel Alonso Davila (president DMD-Cat, member society) who in April 2019 let us down, at a late date, and for the second time, by withdrawing her offer to organize & host our two-yearly meeting in Barcelona: ‘It was too great a burden for her.’

She, together with Peter Warren (president of FATE, not a paid-up member society at that time) misused Jet.

Jet however, thanks to her network in Brussels, &with the help of Hilde Vautmans (MEP ALDE) was able to organize, at very short notice, our biennial meeting in the Euro Parliament in December 2019. However, Jet failed, alas, to follow the requirements of the constitution for a proper conference.

Marc van Hoey (president RWS, member society) asked how it was possible that Isabel and Peter presented themselves, out of the blue, as the new board, (together with an unknown representative of the Luxembourg society and accompanied by our sitting secretary Jet).

It became a ‘nightmare’ and, in the end, we had to close the meeting because of time. A new group of people had already entered the room. We finished in a hurry with the intention to have a meeting according to the requirements of the constitution within six months. Shortly afterwards, it turned out that Peter Warren had taken an option for an Edinburgh meeting in June 2020 (later cancelled). The still legal board members Hugh Wynne and Aycke Smook were kindly invited to be guests at that meeting!

We may be blamed for having not done enough during our board membership for RtDE. However, we have asked our member societies several times about their progress and if we could be of any help, but we never got answers to these requests.

Neither did we receive any reaction to our reports on our success in Strasbourg, where we, Hugh and I as RtDE board members, were able to achieve, after years of lobbying, an INGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) status at the Council of Europe (CoE). We were invited there, to the Conference of INGOs, in 2013, immediately after the RtDE conference in Rome. The Conference of INGOs is like a jungle you really must fight for attention there. We went there twice a year for a week, lobbying with increasing success. We became known as the group with a controversial message. Even so, I was invited twice to stand for vice-chair of the Human Rights Committee. Individually people supported our view but, as an INGO, the voting turned out differently. The explanation may be that, although we are popular, our RtDE organisation is a bit scary for people that are not ready for self-determination at the end-of-life, mostly on a basis of religion.

At this stage, RtDE should be a flowering organization, with societies that join, support, and feed the board with initiatives and recommendations to get our aim for freedom of choice at the end-of-life accepted on a wider scale. We have fought for that acceptance in the European Parliament and at the Council of Europe. We discovered that politicians, and members of INGOs we met, were generally unaware of euthanasia societies in their own countries. Some said that, indeed, they had heard about groups in their countries working on ideals like the aims that RtDE promote. Is all this to consider as a failure of the board of RtDE?

Sorry we reacted late on your wide-ranging and valid letter Ludwig, Silvan, and Sandra!

We do hope and expect that many remarks to revitalize RtDE.