The experience of Rezekne municipality is promoted in Brussels
From 19 to 23 October Brussels (Belgium), representatives of the communication industry and experts from local and regional authorities, public authorities, universities, European institutions as well AS EU countries Europe Direct information centres. Also the Head of the Rēzekne District Development Planning Unit Anna Jaudzema, and Europe Direct Inta Rimšāne, Head of Information Centre in Eastern Latgale, participated in seminars, debates and lectures of experience, discussing and listening to the major challenges in the field of communication.
On 21 and 22 October, the representatives of the Rēzekne municipality also participated in the conference held by the Committee of the Regions Europcom2015, which took place in Brussels for the sixth time and gathered around 900 participants. Anna Jared said about the experience of Rezekne's municipality in implementing administrative territorial reform, which resulted in almost all the parish of Rēzekne District, who chose to remain in the new municipality, which has also become the largest municipality in Latvia and has successfully used the funding of the various EU programmes. Between 2009 and 2014, projects of more than 37 million EURO were carried out in Rēzekne municipality.
He said that several years before the creation of the new municipality, through local mass media, regular contacts took place with the parish people on the possibilities of cooperation with the then Rēzekne District Council. Citizens' meetings were organised regularly in parish. The parish journalists in the framework of the European Union funded project prepared news pages on various topical issues in rural areas, thereby also providing feedback between residents and administration. Significant attention was also paid to young people through the creation of a youth council in order to promote their involvement in the decision-making process and to encourage them to stay alive and work in the Rēzekne District.
In the Salo municipality in Finland, the public relations specialist Tija Järvelä confirmed that the creation of the new Salo municipality had a crucial role to play in communicating with the population. The new municipality of Salo was established in 2009, combining ten municipalities in one. The main message that the administration wished to hand over to the population of the pooled municipalities was that the city centre and rural areas would be equally important and no one would lose their jobs. Similar to the Rēzekne municipality, a meeting of the population was organised during the new Salo building, in order to encourage discussions and gather information about the people's thoughts and views on municipal consolidation issues. As one of the major problems that remain unresolved, Jarvela acknowledged the choice of the new Salo municipality. After a long but unambiguous discussion on the new municipal coat of arms, the second largest city coat of arms was selected, but it is still used in very rare cases, as not all municipalities consider it the right choice. In place of the coat of arms, much more support has been obtained by the new local government logo, which is completely new.
Video of the Committee of the Regions on the progress of the EuroPCom conference
Conferences Europcom2015 illustration of the presentation of Anne Yupham
