EU COORDINATORS MET IN KOTKA

The 5^th meeting of the EU Coordinators' network was held in Kotka, Finland on 4-5 May 2001. The City of Kotka has prepared an interesting program for participants.

As inspiration to the networks' future activities, the Finnish Association of Local and Regional authorities demonstrated their experiences from a project on strengthening local governance in Russia. The presentation opened an inspiring debate about the many challenges which local governments in former Soviet Union face.

Following, the City of Pori told about their experiences in setting-up a Finnish network of EU co-ordinators. The Finnish network started out with only 3 participants and today they count about 40 participants. The experience is that the sharing of best practice and information is very fruitful when engaging in EU activities. The network meets annually for contact as well as for dissemination of information, the network has developed an extensive web-site for the members.

The experience of the Finnish EU coordinators' network is very relevant for the UBC EU Co-ordinators that are setting up a new agenda for the activities. There is a large demand for knowledge and sharing of best practice in the field of EU organisation and development at local and regional level, specifically towards the BSR authorities. Until now the network has dealt with many of these questions and has carried out training activities. To further strengthen the network activities, the participants of Kotka meeting agreed to take contact with EU co-ordinators in their own countries in order to establish a platform of contact in the respective countries and thereby combine national and UBC networks to extend the sharing of experience.

Additionally, it was agreed that the UBC EU Co-ordinators network needed a strategy for its future activities. This network is of great importance for cities involving in EU activities, and the meeting discussions proved that there is a strong wish to further develop the network structure. A working group of 3 persons will therefore work on a proposal for a strategy for the network activities. The working group consisting of Kotka, Tallinn and Aalborg will meet in June.

Furthermore the city of Kotka presented the new harbour area, which has gone through an extensive development to be one of the most important harbours in the Baltic Sea Area.

All participants in the Kotka meeting would like to express their gratitude to the City of Kotka for the warm welcome !

Next meeting of the UBC EU Coordinators will take place in Aalborg in the autumn.