FEI 1999 General Assembly

The FEI held its annual General Assembly at the invitation of the Qatar Equestrian Federation, on 17 and 18 April 1999 in Doha, Qatar. In connection with the General Assembly both the Bureau and the Executive Board met twice. The six days of meetings were extremely well organized by the host Federation and was held in an excellent atmosphere.

Out of the 116 member National Federations, 80 were present: 56 were represented by delegates and 24 by proxy.

The major points of the deliberations were the statutory revisions of the Statutes and General Regulations. Before being brought before the General Assembly, the proposed changes were discussed in an Open Forum.

Statutes

As to the Statutes, a major step was the creation of Associate Membership with no financial charges in the first three years and reduced costs to purchase FEI rules and publications. An Associate Member may not organize an international event, but athletes from Associate Members may compete internationally.

The Assembly approved the creation of a ninth geographical group, comprising the African countries South of the Sahara, which was part of Group VII.