Seminar "Electronic Union of the Baltic Cities"
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Seminar "Electronic Union of the Baltic Cities" |
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On 25-26, April, 2002, the seminar "Electronic Union of the Baltic Cities" was held in Saint-Petersburg. The seminar included the discussions on the above mentioned issue and visiting IT companies in the city of Saint-Petersburg. As we all know the enlargement of EU in the Baltic Sea region will set a new geo-political situation in which one of the challenges to take up for the cities - UBC members will be consisting in assuring a constant and dynamic enough economic growth. The Council of the Baltic Sea States and the official structures of the European Union involved in the elaboration of the e-Europe, e-Europe+ and NeDAP programmes have come to the conclusion that an efficient use of the tool in question should be considered only in the frame of a well-defined at political level strategy. Therefore, in the framework of UBC, the emphasis should be placed on moving toward a conceptual integration of all the existing e-programmes for more co-ordination in general and adaptation to the specific conditions of the member cities in particular. Unfortunately at present, the cities belonging to countries, non-members of the EU, can not take any advantage of mentioned above programmes. At the same time, those of the member cities that are not part of the Russian Federation, cannot benefit from e-Russia and e-Petersburg programmes. So while intending to strengthen "the co-operation in the Baltic Sea Region in all fields", UBC member cities still develop IT-related projects often individually. Thus, a more coherent, co-ordinated action is needed. To implement the missing link of the chain that should join together e-Europe, e-Europe+, NeDAP, e-Russia, e-Petersburg and other national e-Initiatives, a Commission or Network on Information Society is acutely needed. The mentioned structure will elaborate the e-UBC programme, which is presently the only way to assure real interaction between the earlier cited wide-ranging programmes, lifting UBC to a more progressive level and also fulfilling the conditions required to make the step from individual visions and programmes to a coherent Information Society. Contact: Serguei Naumenko chief of NIS and Baltic states unit Committee for External Affairs St Petersburg city administration e-mail: svn@frinet.org fax +7 812 276 1244 Responsible
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