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RELEASE 23 SEPTEMBER 2008, UPDATED 30 OCTOBER 2008
Newsletter 2/2008The ESIN conference in KasnäsESIN's (European Small Islands Federation) first annual meeting in Finland was held 9-11.9.2008 in Kasnäs, Turku archipelago. This was the eight annual meeting held. During three days representatives from nine different countries met and discussed common island-issues. At the beginning of the conference FÖSS's chairperson Pirjo Hoffström wished everybody welcome. The official part of the conference was opened by the Finnish minister of sports and culture, Stefan Wallin, who spoke about the future of the archipelago. In this opinion it is very important that the youth of the archipelago return to their home islands after having completed their studies. From Prime Ministers Office, the EU-secretariat, Councillor Jyri Ollila continued by talking about EU's Baltic Sea strategy and EU's connection to small islands. There are many difficult questions concerning both the islands and EU's seapolitics. The questions are complicated and a challenge for EU is to investigate how different ways of development can be interwoven and how they could support each other. The member of EU-parliament Ville Itälä visited the conference and informed about current island issues in EU. During the days of the conference ESIN had its annual meeting. Bengt Almkvist from Sweden was chosen chairperson for another year. An important future task of ESIN is to develop cooperation between ESIN and the European Commission. Bengt Almqvist also stressed the importance of shaping interreg-projects of health, energy and schools. The main idea is that national borders shouldn't be an obstacle for developing a balanced and harmonic Europe. The actions are paid with money for EU's regional development. Baltic Sea InterregAn Interreg-cooperation of the Baltic Sea region was started already in Kasnäs. Föss, the island associations of Sweden and Estonia (Skärgårdarnas riksförbund and Eesti saarte Kogu) decided to apply for an Interreg- project next spring. This means that the Finns, the Estonians and Swedes are now discussing the project-plan. In the programme there are three main thematic priorities: 1) health and safety environment, 2) economically competitive and innovative region, 3) attractive and dynamic societies. The first step is to discuss which of the issues we need to focus on. Contract between ESIN and BretagneOn the conference the ESIN's chairperson Bengt Almqvist and Jean-Yves Bannet signed a contract between ESIN and the area of Bretagne on future cooperation. According to the contract ESIN gets to use a secretariat. Bretagne contributes to the salary of the secretary and holds a furnished and equipped office for the secretary of ESIN. Next year the ESIN conference will be held in Elba, Italy. Young Islanders ProjectAfter a busy week in Kasnäs in the South western archipelago of Finland some young islanders from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, France and Italy have got to know each other and the European Commission programme Youth in Action. It was also the Same programme which enabled this seminar for the island youth to be held by the National Association of Finnish Islands. The aim of this project was to create contact between the young islanders and to work with the ideas they have for what should be done for them on a national and European level. Five different project ideas were presented. These projects were: inter-island school exchange where the pupils in island based schools would learn English while speaking and writing with pupils from other island based schools in Europe, Inter island soccer competition, "a picture tells a thousands stories" culture project, a internet forum for the ESIN webpage and a Facebook group which is now operating under the following address: www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26593513825 the name of the group is "Young European Islanders". More about the conferenceRead more in the Report from the ESIN conference (23 September 2008). The programme, speeches and presentations are archived in the release European small islands conference at Kasnäs (19 June 2008). Also visit our media bank: Photos from the Kasnäs ESIN conference (30 October 2008). FÖSS gets an officeFrom the first of October FÖSS has an office. This is located at Fortbildningscentralen at Åbo Akademi university. The address is Tehtaankatu 2, 20500 TURKU. Additional informationFÖSS, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FINNISH ISLANDS Secretary |
