At the invitation of Jacques Blanc, President of the Region of Languedoc-Roussillon (F) and of the Centre Régional des Lettres, the next Plenary session of the culture, Education & training, Youth, Media and Information Technology, Sport Committee of the Assembly of European Regions will be held at Castries on 8th and 9th November 2001.

Chaired by Mr Bruno Hosp, Culture Minister of Bozen Südtirol (Italy), the meeting allowed 70 European Regions, all active Committee members, to consider the definition of the major political themes for the Regions of Europe in the field of culture. In 2002 the AER plans to organise the 2nd Conference of Regional Culture Ministers; the 1st Conference on the protection of cultural diversity in Europe was held in October 2000 in Nyon (CH) and led to a regional position on maintaining unanimous voting in the field of culture.

Among the themes considered, the following brought particular attention:
– the definition of the AER’s priorities in the field of education in relation to the future Spanish Presidency of the European Union,
– the outcome of the study on the writers’ residences at regional level in Europe, undertaken within the “Books and Regions” project,
– organisation of the competition for the most Youth-friendly Region, launched by the Committee at the beginning of the year and for which the prize ceremony will take place at the AER General Assembly (Györ-MosonSopron) on 30th November 2001; 40 European Regions have already applied for this competition,
– creation of an AER youth Summer School alongside of the existing Summer School, an AER training programme for political leaders and territorial managers in field of regional development, in Eastern and Central Europe in particular.

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