Aalborg 17-18 June 2002

The EU Co-ordinators Network annual meeting was organised by the City of Aalborg, Chairman of the network. The meeting was the sixth gathering since the network was founded. At the meeting there was a clear aim at how to develop the network internally by focusing on its composition and its future activities.

At the first day of the programme there were four items on the agenda. The first half of the meeting took place at the well-reputed Aalborg Zoo. The items discussed were:

1. Charlotte Pedersen from North of Denmark EU-office presented their new international strategy and their experience from working with EU projects.

The Municipality of Aalborg has recently adopted an international strategy, which will be implemented and enforced in the seven administrations. The EU-office composition, aims, and strategy were also presented.

Martin Andersen from North of Denmark EU-office in Brussels introduced the participants to his experience with working with networks and took his starting point from an existing network within the urban environment: Urban Forum for Sustainable Development, and gave an example on how wide range of activities a network can cover. The success of these activities depends on one thing: the commitment and inputs by the members of the network.

2. Director Henning Juhlin from Aalborg Zoo shared his experiences from international project co-operation and networking by giving two project examples from Kaliningrad.

Mr Juhlin explained that a network is to be defined as finding new ways of co-operation through personal meetings and conferences. A network acts as a certification mechanism where good partners are to be identified for securing good sustainable projects. Networks do not exclusively have to be within the practical fields; also social networks are important for achieving your objectives.

It is important not only to focus on establishing international networks, but also to get involved in national and local networks both practical and social. Often there can be gained a large-scale benefit from joining/establishing local networks.

The session was finalised by a short guided tour through the Aalborg Zoo.

3. Local Government Denmark (LGD), where project manager Helle Willumsen gave a presentation on their experience with local authority development projects in the Baltic Sea Area.

Mrs Willumsen opened the session by remarking that project experience is and always will be subjective. She continued explaining about the quasi-public authority status the LGD holds although being a private association representing all 275 municipalities but two in Denmark.

A key issue, which was addressed, is the process for public authorities on how to manage projects, especially in terms of manpower.

The principles behind consultancy services based on local needs are issues such as: participation; preparation; implementation, partnership. The different themes and issues for participation were listed. LGD provides a number of consultancy services in projects such as: analyses, training, seminars, processes and analysis, sparring partner.

The problem of participation in projects was raised and was subject for discussion: When has an organisation engaged in enough projects? How to avoid periodic disturbances caused by changes in the organisation’s own structure? Management. How and when to reject a project proposal, which seems unrealistic.

Helle Willumsen raised an important schism by posing the question: what use is it for my organisation to participate in a certain project – should we participate for improving our competencies, for earning money etc.

The session was ended with an intention from LGD who might launch an annual Project exchange Day amongst Danish municipalities. The aim is to support and gather those actors from each of the member municipalities who might have an interest in entering the project cycle management and create a big project exchange/development day. 

4. Project manager Peter Wendelbo (PW) from Aalborg Technical College gave a thorough presentation “From project idea to management” including their extensive experience with EU and other international donor programmes, and ended by presenting a case study of best practise – and emphasized that the best way to learn is by others’ mistakes.

PW introduced us to the organisational set-up behind the Technical College Department for Enterprise Development and emphasized the diversification in focus from one to three sector issues to be the recipe behind the success and economic growth of the department.

1. Test the project concept:

PW introduced us to a case study, where the idea of testing the concept of the training, which the beneficiaries from CEEC will be exposed to, on the school’s own staff to avoid misunderstandings in the concept.

2. Partners’ perception of the project:

Always select partners carefully and watch out for ‘last-minute partners’. In order to ensure the coherence in the project it is important to make sure that all partners are familiar with all activities in the project even those they are not involved in.

3. Avoid skipping inception phase and strengthen communication- i.e. the clarification in form of the initial partners meeting. A meeting which may be neglected due to time pressure for getting started, however this is perhaps the most important meeting for securing that all partners understand their respective role in the project, and not the least for securing the close co-operation in the project. Communication is the keyword behind every project success or failure.

4. Cash-flows

Always make partners and yourself aware that participation especially in EU projects implies a structural negative cash flow as grants and services are being paid out in fiches (smaller portions) with the final fiche after having finalised the project. It is hard for private companies and public authorities both in the EU and in the CEEC to suffer from a periodic negative cash flow, why it is even more important to have prepared for this even before entering the project cycle.

Day 2 – Open forum discussions:

It was agreed that the overall objective of the EU Co-ordinator network would be to strengthen the accession cities and EU member cities by acting as a catalyst for making joint projects between UBC members of the network. Also participation in projects implies that partner cities are actively involved and commit themselves in order to gain from other members’ experiences. Synergy is also expected from a joint co-operation, and new approaches can be developed jointly.

For developing the EU co-ordinators network it was discussed and agreed to set up a steering group, which should act as an active body aiming at revitalizing the network and including more active members. The focal point will be to assist in bringing more partners together in order to elaborate joint projects, with emphasis on EU funding programmes.

There will be distributed certain tasks to all the five members to help the network in coping with the overall objective.

Also it was decided to give way and priority to the members, who are synonymous with those who take upon themselves to be active and contribute to developing the network in a positive direction.

The steering group has been partly established composed by four members and the chair (presently Aalborg), where at least one of these members should origin from the CEEC. There will be elections every year replacing two members (re-election is possible) to secure sharing of responsibilities and continuity. The following members were chosen: Nykřbing Falster, Denmark; Pori, Finland; Juhan Janusson, UBC Secretariat. From the CEEC no decision was taken yet as Krystyna Borkowska from Gdynia, Poland should investigate the possibilities for stepping in prior to going for the position before mid-July.

It is the responsibility for the Steering group to maintain and develop the infrastructure of communication within the network to serve the members needs. This implies setting up a group care on the Internet, which will be undertaken by Aalborg.

It was decided to take advantage of the existing home page if documents etc. are to be uploaded, however there is a list server amongst the EU co-ordinator network, which should be actively used in the future. This is an efficient tool if treated carefully as people need to be cautious about not sending too much information by this server to avoid spamming by making direct contact if any thing may not be of relevance to all the other members of the network.

Aalborg will make the necessary preparations for setting up this list and to ask the members to register themselves, when ever possible.

Three steering group meetings will be organised. The two meetings will be in conjunction with the annual meetings, where the third will be held in Brussels. The group will try to meet in conjunction with other meetings and co-ordinate this date.

Two annual meetings for the entire EU co-ordinator network will be organised and planned by the Steering group. The one will be in a city of the CEEC where the second will be held in Brussels as most cities are going there more than once a year and this could therefore be combined.

One of the important tasks of the Steering group is to keep an updated list of available funds with relevance for the network participants. This list should entail both publicised possible EU funding programmes, dates for submission, and more importantly indications of upcoming calls for proposals etc.

Next annual meeting will take place November 21^st, 22^nd and 23^rd November. If there is no proposal from the members for other destinations in the CEEC, the next meeting will be held in Brussels.

Prior to the next meeting there will be proposed a division of tasks amongst the five steering group members to be decided on accordingly.

Juhan Janusson informed the EU-coordinators about the political work of the network, including:

• The Baltic Sea Region – a coastal periphery?
• Local authorities’ position in the EU
• The working group for a new UBC strategy
• The EU Convention – UBC participates in a Convention forum
• UBC has signed an agreement with Eurocities

It was briefly discussed that the EU-coordinators’ network could support the UBC political work.

Addtionally, the network should make sure not to overlap the work of other Networks and Commissions within UBC.

The meeting ended with a reception at the Aalborg Museum for Modern Art in the beautiful venues designed by the famous Finnish architect and designer Alvar Alto.

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