“Baltic Sea Region Cooperation during Challenging Times” is the topic of the 11th Baltic Sea Region Forum organized by Centrum Balticum. The event will take place on 14th May 2018 at Turku School of Economics and it will be an occasion to discuss about topics like digitalization and security.
For more details, please see the BSRForum_2018_programme
Registration is now open here
Are you up for an exciting opportunity? The Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) invites you in the first AEBR Youth Forum on CBC Innovation Entrepreneurs that will take place in Drama, Greece and will be hosted by Drama Chamber of Commerce and Industry. If you are an open minded person, you enjoy socializing with other people and you are interested to participate in a Bootcamp on innovation in Border Areas, then you are strongly encouraged to apply. The organizers covers accommodation and meals and AEBR subsidies a maximum of 100 Euro for travel expenses. You can find the application form here 3_Application_Drama_June_2018 (1). For further information you can have a look in the following documents: 1_ANNOUNCEMENT AEBR and 2_PROGRAM2_ AEBR or you can contact Johanes Moisio, chair of the AEBR Task force External Borders: johannes. moisio@ekarjala.fi.
The Baltic University Programme, together with Hamburg University of applied Sciences and the Universitity of Applied Sciences Zittau/Gorliz are organizing a Student Conference that will take on 28th May to 1st of June 2018 in Zittau, Germany. The conference is hosted under BUP’s German presidency and the topic is “Innovation for Sustainable Development: Resource and Energy Efficiency in Production and Transportation”. The goal of the conference is to contribute in order to make participants learn and discuss about the role of technological and social innovations for sustainable development.
The target group of the course is Bachelor and Master Students from the Baltic Sea Region, especially with a technical background and at least of one year of experience, However, participants from other fields or disciplines are also welcomed. Deadline for the submission of application is the 20th of March 2018. You can find the application form here BUP Students Conference Application form 2018 . For further information please have a look to the attached documents. BUP SC 2018_Announcement_ letter and BUP_Students Conference_2018_Zittau Germany preliminary information.
The Allianssi Cruise is a 2 day programme conference which covers and debates varius current topics in youth work. It gathers about 1.400 youth work professionals (Finnish youth workers, researchers and policy makers) to a cruise boat in order to discuss, evaluate, innovate and develop their work towards the young people. The cruise also offers the possibility of deeper cooperation between partners and the development of new project ideas. Furthermore, perspectives to other European Topics, such as hate speech,youth participation social incucion etc, will be discussed during the workshops.
The event is organized by Allianssi, the national youth council of Finland, and will take place on 11th to 12th of April 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. Citizens from Germany, Austria, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia, Switzerland are eligible to participate. This project is financed by Erasmus+ progamme and the selected participants will receive a reimbursement for all the travell costs relevant with the participation in the course. For further information you can visit Allianssi`s website. http://www.alli.fi/english/
Uppsala (Sweden) is going to host the 16th Baltic Sea NGO Forum, an important occasion if your organization is an NGO wishing to gain new knowledge and to transfer it to the civil society. (more…)
Four BONUS projects- Science for a better future of the Baltic Sea Region- are going to reach their conclusion this year. Therefore, the conference that will take place on 14th-16th March in Gdansk, in the form of a symposium, will be an unmissable occasion for scientists, stakeholder and policy-makers. After a presentation of the results of the project, the conference will show new approaches in nutrients management and future scenarios in sustainable ecosystem-based governance in the Baltic Sea.
You can find more details at the following links:
During the ERB Executive Board meeting in Palanga (18th-19th September) a position paper on the future EU Cohesion Policy after 2020 was signed by Ms. Akko Karlsson, ERB president, and Mr. Per Ole Petersen, ERB Vice-President.
In the document, the ERB adopted four main recommendations regarding a strengthened EU Cohesion Policy, the importance of European Territorial Cooperation and people-to-people projects, improved coordination with macro-regional strategies, and simplified administrative and financial regulations.
ERB supports economic, social and territorial cohesion, recognizing the importance of the European Structural and Investment Funds for growth and jobs underlying, in this frame, the need of distinguishing between cohesion and investment policies.
One point that has been underlined regards the need of adopting shared management instruments for a real involvement of actors at local and regional level, apart from the development of small-scale, people-to-people projects in order to build-up trust in the neighbouring regions.
ERB will strive to align its activities with the macro-regional strategies- with the EUSBSR in this case. Moreover, in this macro-region Russia plays a fundamental role that pushed ERB to commit in carrying on a dialogue with Kaliningrad Region on topics of common interests.
Finally, ERB asked for simplified administrative and financial regulations.
The position is available at this link.
“Boosting growth and cohesion in EU border regions” is the title of the communication that EU Commission adopted in Brussels on 20th September 2017.
The communication is the result of two years long research and dialogue with local authorities across borders and various stakeholders. The aim of the communication is to reduce administrative and legal obstacles of cross-border interaction smoothing cooperation and cohesion among EU internal border-regions. These regions cover the 40% of EU territory accounting for 150 million people.
Since 1990 Interreg program has been supporting cross-border cooperation financing projects and initiatives to improve connectivity and cohesion, boost economic growth and undertake a path of trust through people to people projects. Despite positive results difficulties still persist: lack of information; complicated administrative procedures; lack of coordination; different tax regimes; different living standards.
In order to tackle them, the Commission has developed a “Border Focal Point” aiming at providing key actors with support to address cross-border issues, sharing experiences and good practices, ensuring that the Commission will take into due account the cross-border regional dimension in its future key actions. Within this framework, the Commission intends to address 10 key actions: deepening cooperation and exchanges; improving the legislative process; enabling cross-border public administration; providing reliable and understandable information and assistance; supporting cross-border employment; promoting border multi-lingualism; facilitating cross-border accessibility; promoting greater pooling of health-care facilities; considering the legal and financial framework for cross-border cooperation; building evidence of cross-border interaction to inform decision-making.
As EU internal border regions contribute significantly to the wealth of Europe, evidence shows that by reducing administrative and legal discontinuities much can be gained. This is the reason why EU Commission will continue to contribute to the progress of border regions funding programmes to boost their development.
If you’re a young European aged between 18-30 years old wishing to have an opportunity as a volunteer abroad the IVY – Interreg Voluntary Youth could be a unique solution. The initiative, part of the European Solidarity Corps, aims at involving young volunteers to support, promote and report achievements of Interreg programmes and projects. It will also make them aware of the many benefits of collaboration among EU internal borders as well as enhance their sense of European solidarity, citizenship and civic engagement.
Among several offers currently available on IVY website, there are two involving Baltic countries such as Germany and Estonia.
As of Germany, the volunteer will help with the implementation of the project “Baltic Blue Growth” as an Interreg Project Partner at the German Coastal Union in Rostock . During the project, the volunteer will learn how human activities affect the environment, how stakeholder groups are formed, how a project like Baltic Blue Growth can be used to share knowledge among Baltic Sea neighbouring countries and improve transnational cooperation. Therefore the volunteer will also participate in project-related events and communication activities. During the project which is expected to last 6 months starting from October – deadline ASAP – the volunteer will receive a financial support of 22 euros per day.
As of Estonia, the volunteer will contribute to the visibility of the project “SCULT World Sport Volunteers Movement” in Tallin. As an Interreg Project Partner, the volunteer will help to formulate the communication plan working hand in hand with the events team in the preparation of activities and events. The project will last for 6 months starting from September and the volunteer will receive 21 euros per day.
On 19th September 2017, the ERB Youth Board took part to a face to face reunion in in the margins of the ERB meeting in Palanga (Lithuania).
Turning ten years in 2017, the meeting represented for the YB a chance to set the strategy for the next 10 years and the areas to focus on. Departing from the targets achieved so far, the idea of a formal statute of the YB came to light. The provision would enable the YB to develop a vision and a mission for the future.
As the lack of young people actively engaged in their local communities emerged as the main challenge, few proposal were outlined. Among them, the Youth Exchanges which will take place respectively in Ronne – Denmark (January 2018) and Kalmar – Sweden (June 2018). The first one, entitled Youth 3.0, will be a unique opportunity to assess the impact of IT technologies in daily life; the second one, entitled Youth 4.0, will be focused on the importance of active citizenship as a relevant mean to develop personal skills and create an open-minded environment. Furthermore, a discussion was held about future projects such as the possibility to organize a Youth Exchange aiming at the creation of an artificial island 100% self-sufficient. So far, this project focused on the establishment of a self-sustainable environment has been implemented in French Polynesia.
The meeting was also a good chance to gain more information about the bid of the city of Klaipeda for the European Capital of Youth 2020. Among the 5 shortlisted cities, Klaipeda intends to tackle youth related issues such as unemployment, early school leaving, disenfranchisement creating an environment suitable for creativity, social activism, collaboration, entrepreneurship. In order to strengthen Klaipeda’s campaign, regions and youth councils within the ERB intend to write a letter of support.
Among the participants to the meeting, there was also Domenico Misurelli as an Interreg Voluntary Youth – IVY program. He will be volunteering for 6 months at ERB International Permanent Secretariat helping with the implementation of the CaSYPoT: management, communication, promotion and dissemination of information. The volunteer will also work with the result of a survey among youth making its outcome more visible. As of the CaSYPoT project conference in Slupsk 11th-13th December 2017, the first draft was introduced to the YB. The conference will be also the opportunity to cooperate with the GaYa project (Interreg Alpine Space) which aims at increasing the quality of democracy in the Alpine area by enhancing the capacity of decision and policy-makers to involve youth as future leaders in democratic systems.