29th Executive Board Meeting
in Kolding
The 29th meeting of the UBC Executive
Board was held on 4 November 2000 in Kolding, Denmark, upon
the invitation of Mr Per Bodker Andersen, Mayor of Kolding.
99 Cities
Mr Pawel Zaboklicki, Secretary General, informed
the Board about the applications for Union membership submitted
by the cities of Tukums, Voru and Mariampole. The Board
decided to accept mentioned cities as Union Members and
wished them fruitful cooperation with other UBC member cities.
The number of Union members reached the figure 99.
 Transportation
The Board decided to nominate the City of
Goteborg as the new leading city in the UBC Commission on
Transportation. Göteborg is interested mostly in public
transport; other aspects of transportation could be delegated
to other interested cities.
Baltic University
Professor Lars Ryden, Director of Baltic
University Programme, Uppsala, made a presentation introducing
BUP's background, aims and activities. BUP is a network
of universities, initiated by Uppsala University in Sweden
in 1991. Today some 170 universities in the 14 countries
within the Baltic Sea Basin take part in the programme.
The Board expressed hope for further close and mutually
beneficial cooperation between the UBC and BUP.
City-University
At the last Board meeting Mr Eugenijus Gentvilas,
UBC Vice-President, put forward the idea to discuss the
question how to stimulate better cooperation between the
cities and universities. Mr Gentvilas sent out a questionnaire
to all member cities. On the basis of the questionnaire
Mr Gentvilas presented an overview of the cooperation between
cities and universities in the UBC.
Mr Peeter Tulviste, Tartu, proposed to organise
a UBC conference where cities, universities and business
would discuss how to improve cooperation between these three
important actors in order to advance the development of
the BSR.
The Board appointed a working group consisting
of Bergen, Klaipeda and Tartu, aimed at initiating the UBC
network of cities with universities.
Interreg III
Mr Juhan Janusson, UBC EUCoordinator, reported
from the meeting of UBC-BSSSC-CPMR Working Group which task
was to create a program for cooperation between local and
regional authorities in the BSR and submit the application
for funding to Interreg III B.
UBC struggled for a new facility for small
and medium sized projects between the local authorities,
since the last programs disappeared in 1998. In October
the EC adopted a document named "Phare 2000 review" prepared
by Mr Gunther Verheugen, EU Commissioner on Enlargement.
Mr Verheugen introduces two new possibilities for cooperation
projects between local and regional authorities. The first
is connected to Interreg III, and the second is a new twinning
scheme. The call for projects is to be published in September
2001.
UBC-LVRLAC
Mr Janusson informed that project between
UBC and LVRLAC will consist of several activities directed
to Lake Victoria cities such as: study tour in the BSR;
Internet training; environment centres; strengthening of
LVRLAC secretariat; creation of LVRLAC women's network etc.
Different actions will be coordinated by specialists from
UBC member cities. The project is financed by SIDA. The
project duration is 3 years and the budget is 1.000.000
SEK per year.
UBC EU-Coordinators
The 3rd seminar of the UBC EUCoordinators
Network was held in Jekabpils in September. The seminar
was devoted to the EU projects, particularly fund raising
and project implementation.
Mr Janusson informed that Ms Karin Wessman,
Kalmar, has terminated her work as a leader of UBC EU-Coordinators
Network. Ms Charlotte Pedersen, Aalborg, will be the new
network leader.
ISPA
Mr Janusson informed about the new EU program
ISPA – Instrument for Structural Policies for Preaccession.
ISPA is one of the EU's three financial assistance programmes
set up to assist the 10 candidate countries in CEE to prepare
for accession. Program supports infrastructure projects
in the fields of transport and environment.
UBC website
Ms Anna Sosnicka, UBC Secretariat, made on-line
presentation introducing the UBC internet homepage www.ubc.net.
She presented the structure of the website ie. the links
and gave information on statistics concerning the number
of visits on respective links. Ms Sosnicka recommended the
newest link named "Documentation Centre" that includes all
major UBC documents. The Board expressed its satisfaction
to the UBC Secretariat in Gdansk and to the Webmaster in
Szczecin for maintaining the high level of the UBC internet
homepage.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Executive Board will
be held in Cesis, Latvia, on 16-18 March 2001.
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