Exeter, Devon (UK), 11 April 2002

The Executive Board of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) met on 11th April, in Devon County Hall, and decided the following:

• The AER continues to play an active role vis-à-vis the European Convention, and has recently launched its latest political discussion platform on this matter. The contributions received in this wide consultation process via internet will form the basis for an initial AER position to be presented on June during the hearing organised by the Convention. Each opinion is important to the AER, so please do not hesitate to make your views heard on the AER Website : www.are-regions-europe.org

• To provide real follow up to the successful step towards giving European regions one united voice, as decided by the Presidents of the European interregional Organisations in Linz on 21st March, by forwarding their common Declaration to the European institutions.

• A Conference on Public health and Social affairs of regional Ministers and political leaders. Major topics for this conference are the improvement of training of professionals in the sector of elderly care with a certain harmonization of qualification standards. Milano-I will host this Conference on 8th November.

• A Conference on Spatial planning with regional Presidents, Ministers and political leaders: “Towards a common regional project for a new cohesion policy: from Region’s experience to new strategies of sustainable development in an enlarged Europe”. The two main ambitions for this event are: – to bring the attention of European and national authorities to the Regions’ project for a new cohesion policy in view of influencing the decision-making process on this matter, – to encourage the exchange of regional innovative and good practices in favour of sustainable development, particularly via the presentation of representative “success stories” of Structural funds, in order to transmit useful know-how to future EU partners as well as to promote interregional projects. This event will take place in Pécs-H on 14th-15th November 2002.

• A Conference on Culture with regional Ministers and political leaders, which will focus on increasing the Regions’ awareness of their responsibility towards their cultural heritage and their duty to promote culture. European “added value” is the result of cooperation between the Regions, the guarantors of cultural diversity. “Regional cultural autonomy means that supra-national law cannot oblige the Regions to promote or not promote a particular cultural sector” declared Liese Prokop, AER President. localisation, unlike globalisation, means the possibility to direct and the means to promote local culture”.

This AER Conference will be held in Brixen-I on 18th October 2002.

For more information: info@aer.eu