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A two day seminar in Kalmar (31 May - 1 June) gathered 20 representatives from the Baltic cities to discuss the role of the EU co-ordinator in their municipalities and to work out concrete action implementation mechanisms for the UBC. Presentation of the UBC Strategy, the EU demands and prospects for local authorities, the role of local authorities in the Baltic Sea co-operation; CBSS, as well as project development in co-operation with the European Commission were the main highlights of the seminar.
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Group discussion during the meeting it's all about co-operation and exchange of experiences |
The group discussed how to collaborate together to fulfil the strategic aims of the UBC. It also debated on the ideas for concrete projects that could be developed in the cities and how to integrate the EU issues into this work.
The second day focused on how to develop the UBC and BSA homepages to create an efficient tool between the UBC member cities and other Baltic Sea organisations
Preparing towards the EU enlargement, local authorities need not only to collect information on the present changes, but they ought to keep a dialogue with the national governments. In this way, the work will be carried out on two levels and the level of competence will be even higher. Only then can the cities forward demands towards their governments. In fact, the EU demands that the national government consult the local and regional authorities before introducing legislation on issues related to their activities. Hence, the local authorities have received an important tool in fulfilling the subsidiarity principle.
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This meeting, which will take place 17-18 September 1999, constitutes a forum for the development of the educational network of UBC Cities in the Baltic Sea Region. It is now important to establish who should be the contact persons for real educational collaboration.
The first meeting of the UBC Commission on Education took place in Norrtälje, 27-28 November 1998. At this constitutional meeting the Commission elected Mr Kurt Pettersson, Norrtälje, as chairman of the UBC Commission on Education and Mr Ivo Eesmaa, Kärdla, as vice chairman. The secretariat of the UBC Commission on Education will be located in Kärdla.
The Commission on Education will work on collaboration and exchange on educational issues between the Baltic Sea countries. This will be achieved through the work of the secretariat, which at present is being established, and through the coordinators in the UBC member cities who represent schools and educational organisations in their respective cities. The UBC Commission on Education will facilitate, for example, the cross-border exchange of students and teachers, the flow of "best practice" approaches within various areas of education and on different levels.
The initial steps within the Commission are focused on the exchange of pupils, students and teachers, adult education and information on education targets. The information within these areas will be offered on a web page in order to realise easy access for those organisations interested in joining and/or proposing projects with a bearing on cross-border collaboration.
Many of the proposals from the last meeting depend on the existance of the secretariat that can realise these proposals. Therefore, the meeting in Kärdla will aim at establishing the next steps and the division of labour within the Commission. The questions that have ensued from this year's efforts are as follows: how the "city co-ordinators" will be chosen, what their responsibilities should be, what information is important in order to facilitate collaboration and exchange within the areas of adult training/vocational training/upper secondary school education, etc. , what kind of information the website should contain.
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The Commission on Education welcomes all city representatives that are interested in increasing collaboration on educational matters between the Baltic cities.
NEWS FROM THE COMMISSION ON BUSINESS CO-OPERATION
Cities of Gdynia and Gdansk being cochairmen of the Commission on Business Cooperation have just prepared a special questionnaire on various economic subjects like: decisive factors for economic successes and solving economic problems, important business events, municipal business prizes, current business information and promotion systems used in each city.
The questionnaire has been sent to all members of the Commission on Business Cooperation.
At the same time the work on issuing of a Economic Statistical Information Leaflet has been started.
The aim of this leaflet is to present-to all of the members of Commission on Business Cooperation -the most important and useful economic data - for example: city budget, income and expenditure, number of enterprises in private and public sectors, number of working places, rate of unemployment, fairs and banks, financial and insurance sectors as well as competent contact persons in the UBC Commission on Business Cooperation.
Above data are aimed at assuring of fruitful business cooperation among the members of the Union of the Baltic Cities.
Perhaps an autumn conference will be held in Gdynia to discuss in details and summarize all questions and proposals arising from the above mentioned materials. The decision will be maken in the nearest future.
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