PROJECT

Participant:

1 - ERSEKCSANAD KOZSEG ONKORMANYZATA (ERSEKCSANAD)

PIC number:

931016574

Project name and acronym:

Europe is reopening —Open EU

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Event number:

1

Event name:

Town twinning meeting

Type:

workshop, seminar, conference, public event

In situ/online:

in-situ

Location:

Hungary, Érsekcsanád

Date(s):

03.08.2023, 04.08.2023, 05.08.2023. 06.08.2023.

Website(s) (if any):

http://ersekcsanad.hu/index.php/oenkormanyzat/palyazatak1/palyazatok/1959-cerv-101091150-event-description-sheet

Participants

Female:

69

Male:

96

Non-binary:

0

From country 1 - Romania:

46

From country 2 - Croatia:

21

From country 3 - Germany:

53

From country 4 - Austria:

34

From country 5 - Serbia:

11

Total number of participants:

165

From total number of countries:

5

Description

Provide a short description of the event and its activities.

On the Town twinning meeting participants form 5 EU and 1 non-EU countries developed a platform to learn about and take into account each other's experiences, good practices, national cultural and multilingual specificities, building on the achievements made so far, creating an even stronger Europe by ensuring the active participation of citizens. The project provided an opportunity to establish partnerships, prepare joint, international projects and also contributed to a livelier civil cooperation, which is the next step of the re-opening.

From 03.08.2023. to 06.08.2023. total of 245 participants, stakeholders, representatives of twin towns from Croatia, Germany, Romania, Austria and Serbia took on place in Érsekcsanád.

During the project activities, the emphasis was on collaboration, which is the precondition of communication between people, the resulting exchange of information, community planning, also future projects and the wide dissemination of their results.

On the first and second day, participants from the invited towns arrived, got to know each other, discussed the course of the meeting, and introduced each other's municipalities, their traditions and their NGOs. The presentations and discussions followed by the performances of folk songs by the delegations, which gave an introductory slice of the culture of each participating partner. The performance was followed by a joint singing in which all participants were involved.

On the third day, the substantive work and the workshops took place where delegations from twin towns shared the European experiences and opinions focused on five themes:

- Opening up of society after the coronavirus

- Tolerance with dissidents

- Community development actions

- The Europe of the future and the fight against Euroscepticism

All five themes were also examined from the perspective of cultural and linguistic diversity, which is seen as a fundamental instrument of European values, without which we cannot talk about an integrated, solidary and strong Europe, whose citizens are the driving forces behind political decisions.

In the afternoon schoolchildren of the settlements and the representatives of the partners compiled a giant puzzle of Europe from the flags of EU Member States, which symbolize a united Europe and the unity without which we cannot achieve our goals in terms of integration.

Delegations form twin towns took part on joint cooking happening, where each of them cooked their specialties, which everyone could tasted, and in addition to political views and cultural traditions, they got to know each other's gastronomy and also discussed about it. Cultural program colored the joint event

On the fourth day, a closing event of the project was held, which was attended by representatives of delegations, members of the European Parliament, national parliamentarians, leading pro-European politicians from the county and surrounding cities, and the results of each workshop was summarized and presented to the audience.

IMPACT:

The impact of the project can be measured on several levels.

The members of the delegations tool an active part in the program, clashing their views during the workshops, along which a consensus was formed that can ensure the future of an open and tolerant Europe, and non-member Serbian participants increased their support for EU accession by disseminating information, as the only alternative.

On long-term the desired impact is in people’s thinking: to minimize the proportion of citizens for whom the Union and Union policies are unacceptable. Thus, the long-term impact is to minimize the Union's opposition in the member states and to raise the level of support for EU accession in Serbia to the highest possible level, as well as a tolerant attitude. These activities can only be further strengthened through joint grassroots activities such as this Programme, which were discussed in detail and argued for and against in the conferences. 

Every participant went home after the TT project with a reinforced belief in the EU, which they are passing on to the citizens of their communities, thus spreading the need for strong integration.

16:00 – 17:00

Receiving and registering participants

17:10 – 19:00

Opening meeting

19:00 – 22:00

Cultural program

09:30 – 10:00

Registration

10:00 – 12:00

Closing conference: evaluations, summarization, meeting closing

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch break

13:00 – 14:00

Dissemination