On 22-23rd May 2017 stakeholders of Euroregion Baltic gathered in Elbląg, Poland for the second Executive Board meeting this year.
During the two days of official discussions, youth workshops and expert seminars, ERB partners touched upon a number of issues that are of importance to the organisation’s future work.
The event started with the joint meeting of the ERB Board with the Board of the Association of Polish Communes, one of important ERB member organisations and the host of the meeting. Gathered in historic roundtable hall in the Elbląg’s Old Town, the ERB politicians, civil servants and youth were welcomed by Mr Witold Wróblewski, Chair of Association’s Board and Mayor of Elbląg, who underlined the importance of ERB cross-border cooperation for municipalities and regions of the South Baltic Sea which since 1998 has been facilitating international cooperation, project implementation and trust building among the participating organisations.
The meeting was presided over jointly by Ms Akko Karlsson, ERB President and Vice Chair of Regional Council in Kalmar County, and Mr Wróblewski.
The Board discussed several important issues of ERB cooperation, among them preparations for the 20th anniversary of the organisation, as well as revision of strategic cooperation documents. Concerning the recently held Monitoring Committee meeting of the South Baltic Programme in Binz, the Board welcomed the approval of the Interconnect project and decided to commence work on the resubmission of the Umbrella project, which was rejected despite a very positive assessment by the external experts and Programme’s Joint Secretariat.
Discussing the draft ERB position on the future of EU Cohesion Policy, the Board decided to amend the final draft to better reflect the ERB priorities in the draft.
The Board also welcomed ERB’s participation in the recently approved Swedish Institute project in which together with the CPMR Baltic Sea Commission, it will engage in raising the awareness of Baltic stakeholder about the importance of the UN’s Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals.
Finally, the Board was informed about the activities of the ERB Youth Board which had submitted 4 projects to the last call for proposals in the Erasmus+ project and was actively participating in the preparation of joint conference and seminar at the EUSBSR Forum in Berlin on the issue of youth participation and empowerment.
On 23rd May ERB organised several parallel meetings with two very important concerning water and youth issues. The Water Core Group met to discuss a potential joint project in the South Baltic Programme that could be dedicated to the issues of improved management of existing water resources, while the ERB Youth Board discussed the future project with the Norwegian partners from Hedmark, as well as the organisation of the Berlin conference.The meeting was also attended by the youth from Warmia-Mazury who were selected within the Baltic Leaders project to build capacities of local youth leaders in the Baltic cooperation.
Full minutes of the ERB Executive Board meeting will soon be made available on ERB website.