Complementing the city's work

by Ms Lena Thorin

The City of Karlstad adopted an international strategy in 2004. It points out the importance of international contacts. One way to facilitate European contacts is to be represented in Brussels. A joint European office for the region of West Sweden represents the city of Karlstad and other municipalities in western Sweden.

We use our antenna office for getting information on different EU tasks. Since they have an extensive network it is easy for us to get in touch with the right people at the EU institutions. Even though we are represented in Brussels it is important for our own representatives to visit Brussels and develop networks of their own.

When talking about the city representation in Brussels and the outputs, one must be aware of the fact that the office does what you ask it to do so you need to be in contact with the office to gain anything from the Brussels potential.

If we really used the West Sweden office extensive network to lobby both thru formal and informal channels I am sure we could have more use of their presence in Brussels. The success is made out of our own possibilities to formulate strategies and priorities that we want our Brussels ofThce to communicate and lobby for. So far our city has not, in my point of view, used the potential of the representation in Brussels as much as we could.

The most tangible results of the EU-work are often the project ideas from our city that get EU-funding. The Brussels office keeps track of all new calls for proposals and the development of the programmes. Our representation in Brussels also has an office in Sweden that helps the city to develop EU-funded projects and can also help us matching our projects with suitable partners. The representation office in Brussels is a complement not a substitute to the EU work of our city.