28^th Executive Board Meeting in St. Petersburg

The 28^th meeting of the UBC Executive Board was held on 16 June 2000 in St. Petersburg at the invitation of Mr Vladimir Yakovlev, Governor of St. Petersburg. The first part of the meeting was attended by the Executive Board members. The second part of the meeting was open to all member cities.

UBC Action Plan

President Anders Engström reminded that at the last meeting in Kemi the Board discussed the draft of the UBC Action Plan 2000-2001. Afterwards the draft of the Action Plan was sent out for comments to the chairpersons of the UBC Commissions and Networks. Members of the Presidium are responsible for the strategic questions in the Action Plan. The Board adopted the Action Plan.

Eurocities

Mr Claus Schulze, Eurocities East-West Coordinator introduced the structure, aims and activities of his organisation. Mr Schulze stressed the importance of cooperation between our organisations, especially as regards joint lobbying in Brussels, which should result in achieving common goals in shorter time.

Commission reports

Representatives of UBC Commissions and Networks submitted reports on their activities since the V General Conference held in Stockholm in September 1999. The Board expressed its satisfaction on the activities carried out by the Commissions and encouraged all Commissions to continue their important work.

Victoria Lake

President Anders Engström informed that in April, together with Vice-President Gentvilas, he paid a visit to Uganda to sign the cooperation agreement between UBC and LVRLAC. The cooperation will include eg. environmental management, IT, institutional strengthening, gender equality, study tours to BSR etc.

UBC Interreg III initiative

Mr Juhan Janusson, UBC EUCoordinator, stressed that currently the main problem for cooperation on local level in the BSR is the lack of funding opportunities. UBC launched an initiative to create a programme for co-operation between local and regional authorities in the BSR within the Interreg III B. A questionnaire was sent out to all member cities asking cities to list the potential projects that could be funded within the programme.

Mr Janusson also reported from the 2^nd seminar of UBC EU-Coordinators network held in Vilnius in May 2000. The seminar was devoted to the integration process to the EU, with emphasis on the local authority level.

Secretary General Pawel Zaboklicki introduced the latest issue of the UBC Baltic Cities Bulletin BCB 2/2000 devoted to Urban Planning in Baltic Cities. The Board urged the contact persons in all member cities to distribute the bulletin among departments in each City Hall and send it to various city institutions such as universities, libraries, ports, chambers of commerce etc.