XLVIII General Meeting of Association of Polish Communes Euroregion Baltic XLVIII General Meeting

Also on 17 May this year, immediately after the conclusion of the Board meeting, the XLVIII General Assembly of Members of the Association of Polish Communes Euroregion Baltic began. After completing formal issues related to the election of the chairman, approval of the agenda and rules of procedure of the General Assembly and election of the Presidium in the person of the Secretary and a member of the Presidium, the Assembly approved changes to the composition of the member municipalities in 2023 and welcomed a new member of the Association - the municipality of Stawiguda.

The agenda included, among other things, a summary of the information contained in the report on the Association's activities for 2022, a factual report and a financial report on the Association's activities, the discharge of the STG ERB Board was granted. The current project activities of the Association, submitted and prepared applications, applications, results of competitions and new support programmes were presented, as well as information on the situation of the Permanent International Secretariat of the Euroregion Baltic.

As the factual and financial reports indicated, the activities of the Association of the Association of Polish Communes Euroregion Baltic in the last year were very effective. The effectiveness of activities in connection with applications to international programmes is 90%. At the moment, only one project out of all those submitted has not received funding, and competition is high, with only 1 in 10 applications receiving funding, although this rate is much higher in some programmes. Information on all current and completed projects is available on the Association's website, under the "Projects" tab.

The General Assembly also discussed the future of the informal Euroregion Baltic network and its planned transformation into an EGTC (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation) organisation. It should be mentioned that there are several Working Groups in the Euroregion, which are set up as permanent groups, to solve long-term problems, or thematic groups, to solve an ad hoc problem, such as: Water Core Group, related to the WaterMan project, Mobility Core Group, which is under development, or the just-established Task Force - climate change and green transition. There is also a Youth Council of the Euroregion Baltic, consisting of two representatives of the Association. The Association's accession to the EGTC would be a new solution on the basis of the existing international cooperation network. This could take place only after the Permanent International Secretariat of the SMS has been formally transformed into the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation. At the moment, no decision has been taken on this issue.