Under the chairmanship of Carinthia´s Governor Peter Kaiser the Alps-Adriatic Alliance´s political level met for a working meeting in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee on November 25th 2015.
A joint statement which condemns the brutal and devious terrorist attacks in Paris calling for intensive peace-keeping and solidarity within Europe was adopted at the very beginning of the meeting. “Our solidarity must be stronger than the violence executed by coward murderers”, says Gov. Kaiser and continues: “The EU was designed as a peace project. Now it´s time to prove that Nobel Peace Prize for Peace was well deserved in 2012.”
Two years after the foundation of the Alps-Adriatic-Alliance (AAA) the political level reviewed the interim results: A total of 105 joint projects and patronages has been approved by the AAA-Steering Committee among which were six which received a co-financing by the EU (five from the Erasmus+- and one from the “Europe for Citizens”-program) These six EU-projects were support with € 15.000,– from the joint budget of the AAA while the applicants are going to receive a total of € 240.000,– flowing back to them from the EU.
Another declaration on “Demographic change in rural areas on the territory of the Alps-Adriatic-Alliance” has been adopted as well during the meeting, because the challenges of an ageing society and a declining population in rural areas affect most regions in Central Europe.
Concerning future project-related cooperation new Thematic Coordination Points (TCPs) will be activated by Croatian Counties: The TCP on Disaster Prevention will be coordinated by Varaždin County while the TCP on Lifelong Learning will be managed by the County of Krapina-Zagorje. The coordination of the TCP on Sports will be handed over from Styria to Karlovac County.
For the future, the political level of the AAA recommends a more intensive use of the EU- programs especially by focusing on the macro-regional strategies, which overlap in the Alps-Adriatic area.
Finally Carinthia, represented by Governor Kaiser, was asked to do another two-year AAA-chairmanship, which he gladly accepted.
Foto: LPD/Fritzpress