During its meeting before the Second European Congress in Mathematics in Budapest
in 1996, the Council of the European Mathematical Society decided that the Third European
Congress of Mathematics would be held in Barcelona in July 2000. Klaus D.
Bierstedt, a member of this Council, who had also been one of the organizers of the International
Functional Analysis Meeting on the Occasion of the 60th Birthday of Professor
M. Valdivia at Peniscola, Spain, October 22-27, 1990, immediately suggested to organize
a satellite meeting on functional analysis in Valencia during the week before the Third
European Congress. Jose Bonet and Manuel Maestre from the two universities of Valencia
agreed with this suggestion and decided to hold such a meeting, ten years after the one
in Peniscola, and now on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Professor Valdivia. The
preparations for the conference started in 1998, the Scientific Committee was formed, and
the first Plenary Speakers were invited