Category: News

Dear Member

As you may have heard in recent weeks, a public participation process around the Future Circular Collider (FCC) project has been initiated in France and in Switzerland, until 1 October 2026.

In concrete terms, several thematic exchanges with the public are planned. They are organised independently of CERN. In France, it is a mandatory regulatory step for large projects, led by the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP).

The aim is to exchange, discuss and learn about the FCC project ahead of the CERN Council’s decision, which is expected in 2028 at the earliest. The summary of this public participation, expected in December 2026, will help to inform this decision.

Below are the event calendars:

• Public debate in France : https://www.debatpublic.fr/projet-accelerateur-particules/agenda
• Consultation in Switzerland : https://www.concertation-fcc-cern.ch/agenda-4091

On 20 July, from 18:30 to 20:30, a joint webinar between France and Switzerland will be organised on the theme: “CERN’s Large Colliders: what lessons can be learnt for the new project?”

This feedback, mainly devoted to LEP and the LHC, could be a great opportunity to shed light on these accelerators from different perspectives: their construction, their location within the area and their scientific contributions.

The webinar registration link is available here:
https://www.debatpublic.fr/projet-accelerateur-particules/inscription-webinaire-20072026

To prepare for this webinar, the teams running the public debate have also launched a call for personal accounts to collect feedback on the life of CERN’s accelerators and on the links between the Organization and the area. These accounts are valuable in enriching the exchanges and offering a diversity of points of view.

If you wish, you are welcome to contribute:
https://www.debatpublic.fr/projet-accelerateur-particules/appel-temoignages-retour-dexperience-sur-les-accelerateurs-lep-et

Finally, we inform you:

1. that an information meeting dedicated to the beneficiaries of the Pension Fund will be organised in September at CERN followed by a drink. The date is still to be defined and will be communicated to you in due course;
2. that the GAC-EPA can take care of the establishment of an « actor’s notebook » with all those who wish to do so – please contact us at office.secretariat@gac-epa.org – Link to the FCC Public Debate Stakeholder Notebook (deadline October 1, 2026): https://www.debatpublic.fr/projet-accelerateur-particules/les-cahiers-dacteurs-9067

We hope that you will register in large number for the webinar on 20 July and that you will participate in the meeting dedicated to the beneficiaries of the Fund in September – date to be defined.

The Future of CERN concerns us and interests us too!

Sincerely,

Catherine Laverrière, President of  GAC-EPA

Dear Members

We would like to inform you that this spring’s Bulletin (Bulletin # 70) is available on the GAC-EPA website by following this link. It contains a lot of information about the Committee’s recent actions, and we are sure you will enjoy reading it.

To mark this 35th anniversary of the publication of the Bulletin, we have given access on the same page to all the Bulletins, from the first issue in the summer of 1990 to the present day. Happy reading to those who like to go back in time and relive the history of our Group and our Organizations!

The Director-General hold a meeting and Q&A session on Thursday, 23 April, at 10 a.m., at the Science Gateway (Sergio Marchionne Auditorium).

The meeting was recorded and the recording can be listened to on the page https://indico.cern.ch/event/1661742/ . This should be accessible to all retirees holding a CERN Verified Guest Account (e.g. gmail.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com, laposte.fr, etc.) given before their departure.

If you do not hold a CERN Verified Guest Account, the procedure for obtaining one can be found in the document (in French) /wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Verified-Guest-Account.pdf

Dear Members

The Annual General Meeting of our Association took place on Tuesday 21 April 2026 at 2:30 pm in CERN’s main auditorium (building 500/1-001). Thanks to all those who were present or followed the meeting via the Webcast. The presentations and recordings are available at https://indico.cern.ch/event/1618360/

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Laverrière, President of GAC-EPA

Dear members

CERN has just published the Swiss Franc exchange rate to be used for the 2025 income tax declaration in France:
https://home.cern/news/official-news/cern/exchange-rate-tax-declaration-form-2025-income

1 CHF =1.07 Euros

This year, the two methods that we described last year:

• Either use the exchange rate mentioned above, determined by the French fiscal administration for income received in 2025.
• Or use the exchange rate valid on the day of receipt of the pension payment and repeat the operation for all the payments

give the same result after rounding.

To our knowledge, the instructions for filling the tax forms that were published on our site in April 2025 are still valid. Since these instructions were given in French we prefer to direct you to the French versions:

• /mode-demploi-pensions-du-cern-et-pension-francaise/
• /mode-demploi-pensions-du-cern-uniquement-2/

We remain available to GAC-EPA members who would like assistance or clarification.