--- title: "European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks: Closing Remarks Marco Stellini President of AVI First of all I'd like to thank all of you very much, especially for being so understanding about hitches due to organizational problems; and an extra-special thankyou to Francisco, who has" url: "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/3582-congress-euro97-closing.html" date: "2026-11-06T00:21:11+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks ![European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/banners/congress-euro97-closing.png) **Closing Remarks Marco Stellini** *President of AVI* First of all I'd like to thank all of you very much, especially for being so understanding about hitches due to organizational problems; and an extra-special thankyou to Francisco, who has believed in us right from the start. The Congress has, in any case, been a great success. Some might think this an irrelevant piece of trivia, but I believe good evidence of our success is provided by the fact that even our sound technician has been converted to vegetarianism! Convincing just one person means saving thousands of animals, and this is important. And what can I say about the cook, a non-vegetarian - we deliberately chose a non-vegetarian venue for the Congress - who enthusiastically threw himself into vegan cookery (how about that!) although this took a lot of time and trouble, and his efforts were a great success. For a few days all the hotel staff have eaten vegetarian. It is really important for us to have had the opportunity to share our experience with non-vegetarians. The hotel Manager told us, "You vegetarians don't do without anything!" which is not true, of course, since we do without a great deal: we deny ourselves the suffering of other living beings… and this is a great satisfaction! The Congress has had a fair amount of press coverage, although unfortunately less than was hoped because of technical problems. There were only a few of us organizing such a big Congress as this. I would also like to thank the journalists here, and the TV stations who have taken an interest in us (the RAI and Canale 5). We are pleased with our success, but nobody must forget that we must forge ahead with our work - it must continue. Every person converted to vegetarianism is a step forward, not just for vegetarians, but for the whole of humanity. *- translations by Hugh Rees, Milan - commissioned by Associazione Vegetariana Italiana (AVI)* A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 1035 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-euro97-index.html?view=article&id=3582:congress-euro97-closing&catid=160","url":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-euro97-index.html?view=article&id=3582:congress-euro97-closing&catid=160","name":"European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/hv-congress-1999-congress-euro97-index.html"}],"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"},"description":"Closing Remarks Marco Stellini President of AVI First of all I'd like to thank all of you very much, especially for being so understanding about hitches due to organizational problems; and an…","about":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#regional-1997-european-congress-bussolengo-italy"}}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Resources", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Interviews", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "congress", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "name": "euro97", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "name": "European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/3582-congress-euro97-closing.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/interviews/3582-congress-euro97-closing.html" }, "headline": "European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks", "description": "European Vegetarian Congress 1997 - Talks - Closing Remarks: Closing Remarks Marco Stellini President of AVI First of all I'd like to thank all of you very much, especially for being so understanding about hitches due to organizational problems; and an extra-special thankyou to Francisco, who has", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/logos/logo-ivu-tranparent-background.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alex Fernandes", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-council.html" }, "datePublished": "2026-06-30T23:45:46+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-06-25T00:04:24+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-10-08T00:52:27+00:00" } ```