UBC Executive Board held its second online meeting The 86th UBC Executive Board meeting took place online on 28 October 2020. The topics discussed include, among others, activities of UBC Commissions, XVI UBC General Conference in St. Petersburg in October 2021, UBC’s Brussels office activities, task force work and project applications, and EUSBSR cooperation. The meeting was opened by UBC President Mantas Jurgutis. First up on the agenda were the reports from UBC Commissions and task forces. The reports were presented by: Cultural Cities, Rūta Stepanovaitė, Chair of the Commission, Kaunas; Planning Cities, Paulina Szewczyk, Chair of the Commission, Gdynia; Safe Cities, Kaspars Varpins, Chair of the Commission, Liepaja; Smart and Prospering Cities, Wolfgang Schmidt, Chair of the Commission, Kiel; Sustainable Cities, Björn Grönholm, Head of SCC Secretariat, Turku; Youthful Cities, Dmitrijs Zverevs, Chair of the Commission, Riga; Gender Equality, Katarina Johansson-Storm, Ann-Sofie Lagercrantz, co-Chair, Kalmar; Youth Employment & Well-being, Matti Mäkelä, Chair, Turku. Also Commissions’ project applications were discussed and a new regulation was proposed that the UBC Commissions and other bodies apply for funding from external sources ie. EU programmes. In the future, the Presidium will approve each application before it has been submitted. XVI UBC General Conference, to be held in St.Petersburg in October 2021, was discussed and the initial theme of the conference decided as “Resilient Baltic Sea Cities. Tackling the challenges and creating the future(s)”. The Board decided that the Presidium will set up a task force to help support the St. Petersburg organisers with the tasks.
by Irene Pendolin | irene.pendolin@ubc.net
The head Of UBC Antenna in Brussels Marko Paunovic talked about the Antenna’s work during 2020 and the future plans. He presented the UBC Positioning Road Map for Brussels which the Board adopted. Task Force on Policy and Projects was presented by the Chair Igor Jojkic. In it’s last meeting, the task force decided to establish four working groups: Urban Agenda for EU, Cohesion policies beyond 2020, Climate Change and Sustainable Development, and Resilient UBC Cities. The Task Force on the new UBC Strategy is to commence its operations soon. This autumn, UBC will be in charge of organising seven online workshops as part EUSBSR HA Capacity, covering following countries: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The objectives of each session: Promoting stakeholders and their involvement in each country; Increasing the level of knowledge of macro-regional strategies; Introducing concrete benefits for the stakeholders; Brainstorming and suggesting potential follow-up actions within EUSBSR. In addition, the Board received information on the 11th EUSBSR Annual Forum held online from Turku on 20 October 2020, about the 2nd BRICS International Municipal Forum in St. Petersburg to be held online on 5–6 November 2020, and the severe waste water treatment problem in Guatemala. The Board also accepted the New Horizons Social Cooperative to become UBC partner. The next UBC Executive Board Meeting will be held in spring 2021. 39
