ERB Working Group on Conference on the Future of Europe established

Following the decision made by our Euroregion Baltic Board Members on 25th May new ERB Working Group for the Conference on the Future of Europe has been established.

The plan for this WG is to follow the COFE debate, events and discussion over the upcoming months and let us all know once there is some significant event or input related to ERB members and stakeholders or anything we may find necessary to the South Baltic area.

In the group, we have the representatives of Euroregion Baltic Secretariats from ERB member states, Europe Direct representatives, and the Brussels Offices representatives from our regions. We are pleased to welcome you onboard and thank you for agreeing to work with us regarding COFE. The list is not finalised; we still keep it open for other actors to confirm their interest

The plan for this WG work is as follows:

• We will keep track of all COFE events and seminars relevant and essential to the Euroregion Baltic/South Baltic area citizens and stakeholders;
• we will share information on important events and meetings organised
• we will promote the ERB/South Baltic area COFE events – please let us know what & when you organise and we will share information on our website and social media;
• In September 2021, we will organise an online meeting of the WG representatives to exchange knowledge, and discuss the potential directions where we could engage more.
• In the late autumn of 2021 current ERB presidency, Blekinge Region will start working on the draft of the ERB position paper regarding the COFE – a document that we hope the WG can discuss later. The upcoming presidency of Warmia and Masuria Region will also be closely working on the final draft. Finally, we would like to see the document ready for Fen 2022  and adopted by Euroregion Baltic Board Members during the Board meeting.

We hope that this WG will help us promote the most important events and inputs from the COFE, share them with ERB and South Baltic Stakeholders and finally, in the fall, these inputs will allow us to prepare the ERB position paper to be adopted in Feb 2022.

We invite you to join us on June 15th for an Umbrella 2.0 webinar on the EU Green Deal in relation to the Baltic Sea Cooperation.

It is dedicated to the so-called ‘newcomers’ –> small and local organisations willing to engage and increase knowledge on

• ​EU Agenda,
• Organisations active in the Baltic Sea Region
• Projects and their impact in ‘greening’ the BSR
• And much more!
•  

REGISTER & take part in this webinar. Be active in discussions with experts and Q&A session!

LINK: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CUHZ0W3CTJuDK_dIwqD9Zg 

PROGRAMME

10.00: Intro & Welcome 10.05 – 10.20: Setting the scene

• Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation (BSSSC) by Marta Czarnecka-Gallas, BSSSC Secretary-General
• Umbrella 2.0 by Magda Leszczyna-Rzucidło, Project Coordinator, Umbrella 2.0

10.20 – 11.45: Green Deal- the Strategy that is changing the European Union
• Katarzyna Bałucka-Dębska, EU Commission
• Valdur Lahtvee, Council of Baltic Sea States
• Discussion with experts and Q&A session

11.45- 12.00: Coffe break

12.00 – 13.20: Active for Green Baltic Sea Region
• Miikka Toivonen, CASCADE, Southwest Finland Emergency Services
• Nico Stelljes, INNOVA, Ecologic, Germany
• Maria Micha, Diet for Green Planet, Sweden
• Discussion with experts and Q&A session 13.20 – 13.30: Round-up and Conclusions by Marta Czarnecka-Gallas, BSSSC Secretary-General

Save the Date! From 1 to 5 March 2021, DG REGIO will host the 2^nd EU Macro-Regional Strategies Week (EU MRS Week) that will take place digitally.

Reconnect, Rethink, Recover – the motto of the EU MRS Week gives a straightforward idea on the burning issues that will be tackled throughout the five days:

To Reconnect MRS key implementers, stakeholders and representatives of EU institutions will be key to Rethink the way to cooperate and prioritize MRS objectives in order to best Recover from the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 with concrete actions on the ground.

Therefore, the participants will have the opportunity to attend many sessions on paramount matters, such as the embedding process, MRS supporting the enlargement process or on how EU funding programmes directly managed by the European Commission (e.g. Horizon, Life, …) can support the implementation of MRS. Amongst the opening session with high-level speakers, there will be the occasion to engage with young people from the macro regions as well as with civil society organisations.

Discover below the provisional agenda of the week:

• On the 1^st of March, you can expect the opening session, followed by bottom-up sessions to empower participation of Youth and of Civil Society Organisations in MRS, and on MRS support to recover from COVID-19 
• On the 2^nd of March, in the morning, the EUSAIR Governing Board and the EUSBSR National Coordinators Meeting will take place while the EUSALP strategy will discuss embedding matters in. In the afternoon, you can join the workshop on the contribution of EUSAIR and EUSDR to the priorities to the Economic and Investment Plan of the Western Balkans .
• On the 3^rd of March, a cross-MRS embedding workshop is to be expected. In the afternoon, the opening session on EU funding programmes in direct management will gather representatives from the EU Council and from several line DGs of the European Commission to respond on the Council Conclusion of the 3^rd report on the implementation of MRS On the 4^th of March, six consecutive workshops will bring programmes in direct management closer to MRS 2021-2027 in an exchange between line DGs and MRS key implementers regarding:Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, Connecting Europe Facility, LIFE,  Single Market and ERASMUS+

Finally, on the 5^th of March, the High level Group Meeting will take place in the morning and in the afternoon, the four MRS Presidencies and Trios will meet and close the EU MRS WEEK.

DG REGIO works in close cooperation with the four Presidencies of the EU Macro-Regional Strategies, namely the German Presidency of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), the Slovak Presidency of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), the Slovenian Presidency EU Strategy for the Adriatic–Ionian Region (EUSAIR), and the French Presidency of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP).

Stay tuned for more information regarding the registration to the closed and open sessions.

Euroregion Baltic is happy to support the European HomeParliaments project. From September 19th until November 1st, we will together enable several thousand citizens to participate in European politics.

As a supporting partner, Euroregion Baltic and Association of Polish Communes of Euroregion Baltic together with local partner commits to spreading posts on our social media about the European HomeParliaments campaign running between 19th Sep and 1st Now 2020.

Website : The most important page for the project is: https://homeparliaments.eu/pl/ .
And you can learn more about the initiative here:

EU politics needs citizen participation

Invite friends and acquaintances round and get involved in a lively discussion about the political decision-making process on the future of Europe. From 19 September to 1 November 2020.

What are European HomeParliaments?

The concept

With the European HomeParliaments we want to enable civil society commitment to Europe right there where opinions are first formed: at the kitchen table, when eating together with friends and acquaintances – simply at home or in a café,  in the park or at your regular get-together.

HomeParliaments offer an innovative and effective method of civil participation that serves to improve legislative processes through a coordinated exchange of information between voters and political decision-makers. Anyone who is interested and has a constructive opinion on European policy issues can participate and influence political decisions.

This process is therefore particularly suited to connecting the citizens of the European Union and the political decision-makers in Brussels in a constructive way. This is how citizens can contribute on a small scale to the big picture.

Join in and organise

A HomeParliament is where 4 to 8 people meet up to discuss and then answer a given European question. Pulse of Europe provides all the necessary material, as well as input for different lines of argument.

From now on, the European HomeParliaments can also be organised via video link.Become a hostl

1. Register

Register here on the website and you will receive a confirmation email from us. We will send you all further documents. That’s all you need to organise your HomeParliament.

2. Invitations

Now you can invite three to seven friends and acquaintances to your European HomeParliament. You can also consider inviting people with different opinions in order to encourage a lively discussion!

3. Host the European HomeParliament

And there you go; you can now hold your European HomeParliament! It usually takes two hours. The documents guide you through the discussion and your answers are recorded on the question sheet. It’s like a game night.

4. Send in the results

Upload the results of your European HomeParliament to the platform.

EU politicians respond

We summarize the results of all HomeParliaments in several European countries and hand them over to the feedback partner. They will comment on the results in a digital format and we will invite you and all participants to this discussion.

In the light of Corona Crisis we have in few months gone through a global society crisis. The crisis has awakened a global collective anxiety and has resulted in many questions about society that are now more relevant than ever. How does the crisis influence globalization? Is it working against or with globalization? What happens with Europe? What is not happening with Europe? Is the crisis in favor of the nation state or the European community?

On Europe day the 9th of May, Nyt Europa invites citizens to a debate about the corona crisis and its influence on European identity. Which repercussions should we expect or fear will be due to the closing of European borders? Will the nation states cut themselves off from each other in the future or conversely be more aware and positive about European common solutions? What should we interpret after the criticism of the EU and its handling of the situation, the internal European conflicts like Hungary who neglects European values, or the economic disunity on euro-obligations? To put it differently, will the crisis confirm a missing European teamwork or speed the process towards more visible European common values?

To discuss these questions, we have invited two Europeans and experts:

Rosa Balfour is the director of Carnegie Europe. Her fields of expertise include European politics, institutions, and foreign and security policy. Her current research focuses on the relationship between domestic politics and Europe’s global role.

Miguel Otero-Iglesias is Senior Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute and Professor at IE School of Global and Public Affairs. Otero-Iglesias originates from both Spain and Switzerland and has if any felt the division; for what do you do when you feel like a Southern European, but think like a Northern European?

Caroline Tranberg, editor and journalist at Altinget and Spektrum.