I was pleased to see the recent letter of support from Robin Healey (see [2004] Gazette, 5 February, 14).

However, I would take issue with his description of the the Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE) as 'a rather flawed model'.

Regarding our lack of a regulatory mandate, the very article about which he was writing describes the proposed new Services Directive, which will give us a regulatory role at the European level.

And, even in the absence of a regulatory mandate so far, the CCBE has drawn up its code of conduct on cross-border work of lawyers that, because of its quality, has been adopted in all member states.

As for our waging a self-destructive war with the European Commission over competition issues, we were pleased to note in the commission's newly published report on competition issues that our proposition that the European competition authorities should recognise that there is a proper role for regulation of professionals, has for the first time been publicly acknowledged.

That does not sound as if we followed a self-destructive route.

As for the so-called protectionist attempts to deny in-house counsel full privileges at law, the CCBE presidency has initiated a fruitful discussion in the CCBE that aims at a common position on bar membership of in-house counsel in the member states.

This is a difficult process, but the UK at least, with its three jurisdictions and six legal professions, each with a different set of rules, should recognise the difficulties in reconciling the cultural traditions of 15 - soon to be 25 - member states.

The letter lastly says that the public interest rarely appears in our debates.

In fact, the public interest is rarely out of them.

The discussions on competition and in-house counsel, to name the two I have already mentioned, or on issues such as access to justice and corporate social responsibility, centre on the question of what best serves the public interest.

Hans-Jrgen Hellwig, CCBE president, Brussels