On 6th Feb 2017 the Executive Board of Euroregion Baltic met in the city of Kalmar to officially transfer the ERB Presidency from Kaliningrad Region to the Regional Council in Kalmar County and agree on a wide range of activities for the coming year.
The Board meeting was held at the office of the Regional Council in Kalmar County (RFKL) and gathered more than 30 participants from all member organisation of ERB.
The most important part of the Board was the Presidency transfer. In accordance with the jointly agreed sequence of chairmanships, the Board approved Ms Akko Karlsson, Vice Chair of Board of RFKL as the new ERB President, while appointing Mr Per Ole Petersen, Member of Council of Regional Municipality of Bornholm as her Deputy.
At the same time, the Board approved the change of chairmanship in the ERB Youth Board where Ms Yanina Andrushkevich, representing Regional Government of Kaliningrad, took the position of the Chairperson with Ms Alexandra Winberg from Kumulus Kalmar as her deputy.
The meeting was dedicated to the outcomes of the Russian ERB Presidency in 2016. The Board expressed its satisfaction at the fact that ERB has become more oriented on tackling concrete issues through joint international projects. These especially included the implementation of the CaSYPoT – Capacity Building for Strategic Youth Policy and Transnational Cooperation and CaSYPoT-Ru which allows for direct Russian participation in the project. Development of other projects, such as the Umbrella capacity building project in South Baltic Programme, was also considered as a very good step to develop ERB cooperation. The outgoing Presidency was also praised for ERB becoming more active throughout the region and engaging with other Baltic organisations such as BSSSC and UBC as well as actively participating in the Annual EUSBSR Forum in Stockholm.
More information about the future plans of the new Presidency will be provided soon.