Eric Lepine (left) took over the presidency from Johann Sailer (right).
Eric Lepine, the general manager of Caterpillar France, has been appointed as president of CECE (Committee for European Construction Equipment) for a two-year term.
Lepine took over the position from Johann Sailer, who had been chairing the association fort two years. The official handover took place in Paris in December on the occasion of the last CECE-Steering Group meeting of the year.
During his 26 years of experience in the industry, Eric Lepine has held various positions at Caterpillar in countries such as Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Russia, USA and UK before taking over the responsibility in Grenoble, France.
His main goal for his presidency will be to ensure the implementation of the 10 points listed in the CECE’s industry manifesto, which were presented during the 2013 CECE summit in Brussels to the members of the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Lepine believes that CECE should focus on three main priorities during his Presidency: achieving a harmonisation of road safety requirements for non-road mobile machinery within Europe; ensuring that industry’s needs are duly taken into account within the current revision of the exhaust emission legislation and finally the association should work for the final approval of the market surveillance legislation review, currently stuck at the European Council level.
He plans to step up dialogue with decision makers in Brussels at all levels.
“We will keep on promoting the idea of fair competition and free trade for all market players in Europe. What we have to avoid is non-needed complexity in laws and regulations,” he said.
His deputy chairmen for the next two years are Christian Stryffeler, executive vice-president for the machine segment of Ammann AG and Giampiero Biglia, business director at CNH Industrial.