National President of Confédération Nationale du Logement (CNL), France.

Eddie’s commitment to tenants’ rights began in 1995, when he founded a local tenants’ association in the suburbs of Lille. In 2013 he was elected National President of CNL, the biggest tenants’ organisation in France.

Son of a docker and a housekeeper, he knows the importance of solidarity and social fights. To him public housing, where he discovered the bathroom, is a symbol of social progress.

Interested in international debates on housing, since 2006 he cooperates with the International Union of Tenant, of which CNL is Board member.

Ronald Paping (59) is general director of the Nederlandse Woonbond (Dutch Tenants Organisation) since January 2007. He studied economics in Groningen. Afterwards he worked at the University and at the trade union ABVAKABO FNV. From 2002 to 2007 he was a member of the executive board of this union.

The Woonbond is the national advocate of tenants in the Netherlands and was founded in 1990. The Woonbond organizes individual tenants (7.000) and local tenants organisations (400). Through those member organisations the Woonbond organizes 53% of the Dutch tenants. The Woonbond has 60 employees who are working for instance to help the local organisations, to give juridical advice, to give advice and do the national political lobby for tenants.

The Woonbond has reached some important results the last years. The position of the tenants organisations has become stronger in the new Housing Law 2015. Affordability of social housing is, after years of highly rent increases, high on the political agenda. A few months ago we have reached an agreement with the social landlords to lower the rent increases.

Conny Reuter has been Secretary General of SOLIDAR since October 2006. He is also serving as: Co-Chair of Liaison Group of the European Economic and Social Committee’s (EESC); Co-founder and Board member of Social Service Europe (SSE) since 2012; Member of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Workers Education Associations (IFWEA) since 2008. Before moving to Brussels, Conny worked in Paris and Berlin heading the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO) Department for School and Youth Exchanges (1998-2006), working at La Ligue de l’enseignement in Paris on European projects (1990-1998) and heading the liaison office of La Ligue in Germany working on Franco-German youth exchanges in professional and vocational training (1985-1990). From April 2008 to April 2013 he was President of the Social Platform, the platform of European Social NGOs.

He has extended experience in NGO networking, managing EU and international projects and events. He is specialized in social policies, education and global justice issues.

Sander Scheurwater is a Dutch national and studied Economics at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam where he achieved his Masters in 2000. He majored in sociological economics.

In 2000, Sander started his career at the EU Affairs Office of General Motors where he was responsible for technical and environmental issues.

In 2006, he joined RICS, where his responsibilities included urban and housing issues, valuation and finance and environmental related issues.

Between 2009 and 2012 he was the RICS Head of the EU Policy & Public Affairs team.

As of 2013 he became the Head of External Affairs & EU Liaison for the RICS Europe region. Besides EU Affairs, his current responsibilities include market recognition of RICS, national policy & public affairs and the development and adoption of international standards.

In the recent past, Sander has chaired the European Housing Forum for three years as well as the RICS Europe Sustainability Task Force.

Klaus worked until recently as Director of Cooperatives Europe, in order to defend the interests of European cooperative enterprise towards the European institutions and to promote the cooperative enterprise model across Europe. Cooperatives Europe represents around 160.000 cooperative enterprises from across the economy in 33 European countries and is part of the International Cooperative Alliance.

With an academic and professional background in private sector development he has worked before as financial analyst, as strategic management consultant and as SME development manager. Klaus has gained experience in many different economic sectors ranging from investment banking in Luxembourg and the US, in SME support in textile & leather sector in Sub-Saharan Africa to consulting to logistics, pharmaceutical and chemical companies in Germany, France and Switzerland.

Convinced about the crucial role of enterprises as agents for economic and social change, Klaus devotes his work in Cooperatives Europe to supporting cooperative development in Europe and internationally, in particular with regard to emerging sectors such as renewable energy and with regard to promoting bottom-up participation in enterprises.

György Sümeghy received his MA in English and Hungarian Literature in 1995 in Budapest. He spent ten years in public education and later at a private business college. Based on his management experience in education and volunteerism and interest in social development he joined Habitat for Humanity Hungary as National Director in 2005. Under his leadership, Habitat for Humanity Hungary has become an advocacy led organization where field projects support strong awareness raising and advocacy initiatives to change housing policies in the country. Gyorgy joined HFHI/EMEA in 2013 to lead regional advocacy initiatives and support national advocacy programs in EMEA region. He represents HFHI in Brussels and all over Europe at regional conferences and meetings.

Architect by training, Dr. Rosenfeld designed and helped delivery of over 6000 affordable homes before committing herself to international housing policy research, analysis and counsel. She is an adjunct professor at Sciences Po – Paris Institute of Political Science and holds a doctorate in Housing from University of Westminster in London. A housing expert, Dr. Rosenfeld consults for the World Bank and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. She is a member of expert groups contributing housing efforts of the OECD, UN-Habitat, CBNC and Habitat III.

Claire Roumet is Director of Energy cities, the European association of local authorities in energy transition. Energy Cities initiated a process aimed at making and debating proposals for accelerating the energy transition of European cities, with the example of its pioneer 1000 members located in 30 countries. She joined 2 years ago the team of Energy cities after 12 years as Secretary General of Housing Europe, the Federation of social, public and cooperative housing providers. She is French and graduated in economics. She has done a post-graduate in European policies in Strasbourg after a year of econometrics in Mainz, Germany. She has been member of the board of the EU coalition for energy savings, Vice-President of the Social Platform.

Andrea is a senior economist at the European Investment Bank, responsible for the financing of urban and regional development projects. Prior to this, Andrea was at the London School of Economics, leading projects for major European cities on integrated urban development and institutional governance, sustainability policy, planning and evaluation methods. He holds a PhD in Economic Geography and is the main author of Transforming Urban Economies: Policy Lessons from European and Asian Cities (2013); Urban Regeneration and Social Sustainability: Best Practice from European Cities (2010); and Urban Tourism and Development in the Socialist State: Havana during the Special Period (2006).

Barbara Steenbergen has been working more than 15 years for the protection of tenants. She started in 2001 as head of the president’s office of the German Union of Tenants (Deutscher Mieterbund) in Berlin and as political coordinator for energy policy and international affairs. In 2007 she was elected as head of the IUT EU Office in Brussels. Since 2013 she is member of the IUT General Secretariat. She is responsible for the political relations and the lobbying towards the EU institutions.

From 2009 to 2012 she chaired the European Housing Forum; since 2013 she chairs the “European responsible housing” stakeholder forum and jury. Barbara is a German national and holds a master degree in political sciences of the University of Bonn, Germany, and a bachelor in public administration.

Deutscher Mieterbund e.V. (DMB): The German Tenants` Association, represented by Heike Zuhse, is the roof organization of 15 state and 322 regional tenants associations in Germany, with more than 500 counseling centers. About 3 million tenants are members of a tenant association. Heike Zuhse is the scientific advisor of the organization since many years.