The Open Conference on the project “Cities in the Enlarged European Area: Joint Development of Capacities of Public Institutions by Slovak-Ukrainian Cross-border Cooperation and Improving the Integrity in Public Affairs (CEEA)” took place online on October 8th, 2020. Participating, were 25 representatives from national and foreign institutions who were cooperating on the project. These came from: the Municipality of Košice, the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the International cooperation department of Kharkiv City Council, and the Department for international cooperation and innovations of Uzhhorod city council.
The international project CEEA, which started on July 20th, 2020 in cooperation with 4 cities – Košice, Uzhhorod, Kharkiv and Kirkenes – benefits from a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway administered through the EEA Grants scheme, and was co-financed from the State Budget of the Slovak Republic to the amount of 15%. The Project Promoter and the main organizer of the conference is the Municipality of Košice. The subject of the conference was the presentation of the project partners, their tasks, roles, expectations and contributions. The four main activities were discussed during one session of the conference.
The project partners aimed to achieve increased integrity and accountability of public administrations in Slovakia and Ukraine, the development of cross-border institutional cooperation, the promotion and creation of new networks and partnerships aimed at the rapprochement of Ukraine with Europe and to establish long-term and sustainable cooperation between public institutions. Moreover, through cooperation in specific areas of business infrastructure development and pursuing the vision of socially coherent and environmentally and climate-friendly cities, they wished to focus on capacity building and support for long-term sustainable urban development.
During the conference, the experts form the CSPS SAS, Richard Filčák and Zuzana Polačková discussed its analytical inputs relating to documentation of best practices and the transfer of knowledge from theory to practice. Analyses for specific areas of development will be prepared using Norwegian experience and applied to the needs of project partners in Slovakia and Ukraine. The other point of the conference was the TRIANGEL FORUM – a forum of culture, education, economy and security which will be held in all three cooperating cities – Košice, Uzhhorod and Kharkiv.
The implementation of the project will contribute to the fulfillment of the main slogan of this programming period: “Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe”.
More information: https://www.rtvs.sk/radio/archiv/1559/1430269
