Brussels, 12 May 1999

The first meeting of the AER political Bureau, in its new composition issued from elections at the General Assembly in Linz (A) in last December, will be held on 12th May in Brussels. Several subjects will be discussed and in particular:

• Regions faced with the situation in Kosovo;

• Project of the European Constitution, the Subsidiarity, the EU Enlargement, the next Intergovernmental Conference (IGC);

• Regionalisation in progress: results of elections in Scotland and Wales, development in Hungary;

• Adoption of resolutions and decisions made by the AER Committees (January to May 1999):

• Commission A ”Institutional Affairs and East-West Cooperation”
  – Programme of Seminar “Strong Regions for a strong Europe” (27-28 May, Stuttgart-D),
  – Project of the Conference “Regions and EU Enlargement process” (21-22 Sept., Wroclaw-PL),
  – Information relative to the Summer school (28 August, Istra-HR) and Centurio, two AER training programmes;
• Commission B “Social Cohesion, Social Services, Public Health and Employment”
  – Resolutions and decisions which will be made at the next meeting (6 May, Trondheim-N),
  – Declaration of Turin relative to the men-women equality;
• Commission C ”Regional Policy” (Meeting of 18-19 March, Umea-S)
  – Views on the last Environmental Action Programme (EAP) of the EU and contribution to the next EAP,
  – Views on the respect of environmental norms in tourism,
  – Participation in the European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign and in the next Earth Summit,
  – Role of the Regions and interregional cooperation in the implementation of ESDP,
  – Declaration of Grado – Interregional Organisations common position on the Interreg III,
  – Regional twinnings ;
• Commission D “Culture, Education/Training, Youth, Medias, Sport” (Meeting of 19- 20 April, Nyborg-DK)
  – Preparations for a pan-European Conference of Regional Cultural Ministers (2000) and support to the initiative of creating a network for exchanging information via the Internet between regional public libraries (“Culture” Subcommittee),
  – Requests for amendments of Community programmes, especially following the nonadmission of EU candidate countries to the pilot project “Parliaments representing the Youth of Europe” (“Education & Training” Subcommittee),
  – Creation of a programme of solidarity for Romanian street children and orphans – ”Streetkids-Romania 1999”- organised by the Region of Piemonte (I) and proposal put forward by the Region of Odessa (UKR) to organise a conference on the “Participation of Youth in management and public life at regional level” by spring 2000 (“Youth” Subcommittee).

For more information: [email protected]