Hot Issue Nr. 376

MEP Brok joins Board of Patron:

Elmar Brok becomes IRE Patron

After speaking at the 11th Conference of European Regions and cities on 27 September 2015 in Salzburg, the Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Elmar Brok has joined the IRE "Board of Patrons". The IRE is honoured to welcome Mr. Brok as a new patron.

The "Board of Patrons" consists of high-profile personalities from politics and science that support the IRE’s objective, its activities and the idea of a "Europe of the regions" on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity. Other members of the "Board of Patrons" include: Benita FERRERO-WALDNER, Former EU-Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Helmut KOHL, former Chancellor, Germany, Wolfgang SCHÜSSEL, former chancellor, Austria, Theo WAIGEL, former German finance minister and Kandeh K . Yumkella, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer for the programme "Sustainable Energy for All".

Brok (born 14 May 1946 in Verl) is a German Member of the European Parliament and the current Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was elected on behalf of the Christian Democratic Party and sits with the European People's Party. An MEP since 1980, he has held many leadership positions in German and European politics. As a member of the Convention on the Constitution for Europe and in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Brok is widely credited with contributing crucially to the Constitution of the European Union. He is currently the President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF).

Brok studied law and politics in Germany and at the Centre for European Governmental Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scottland. Formerly, he worked as a radio journalist and newspaper correspondent. Brok has also held several other leadership positions in the European Parliament, including Member of the European People’s Party (EPP) Political Bureau, Member of the EPP Group Bureau, Coordinator in the European Parliament committees on social affairs, drugs and German unity, and the European Parliament Representative on the Council's Reflection Group for Maastricht II.
Recognition:
-Federal Cross of Merit (First Class)
-Grand Golden Decoration of the Republic of Austria
-Order of Grand Officer of Luxembourg
-"MEP of the Year for 2003" awarded by European Voice following a Europe-wide vote
and many more.

Source: Official Website Elmar Brok and Wikipedia
photo: elmarbrok.de

News from the IRE Members:

Nicosia: Cities and Regions are essential for the stabilisation of
the Mediterranean area

Local authorities across Europe and the Mediterranean deepen cooperation in the face of the migration crisis and political instability

Practical cooperation at local level is essential if countries around the Mediterranean are to manage challenges created by the conflicts in Syria and Libya, migration and climate change, said local political leaders from the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) on 19 January 2016 in Nicosia (Cyprus). Nicosia is a member of the IRE network for three years now.

“The sources of tension and instability in the Mediterranean are the type that require sustained, very concrete cooperation,” said Markku Markkula, president of the European Committee of the Regions and co-president of ARLEM, which brings together local politicians from the European Union and countries around the Mediterranean. ARLEM’s annual assembly, which was held in Nicosia, Cyprus, adopted eight recommendations and two reports – on urban development and access to jobs – intended to shape policies adopted by the European Union and states around the Mediterranean.

Eleni Loucaidou, deputy mayor of Nicosia and author of the report on employment, placed particular stress on “fighting unfair prejudices that affect the status of women in the labour market” and said that “equal rights for women should be increasingly considered a key precondition” of EU funding. Fawzi Masad, who is responsible for the running of Jordan's capital Amman and authored the report on an urban agenda for the Mediterranean adopted by ARLEM today, said that social trends – including the fast-increasing urbanisation in the southern and eastern Mediterranean – required cities to build up their “resilience” and to generate more jobs.
There were also specific preliminary offers of support for municipalities in Libya, which was represented for the first time in ARLEM. The mayor of Tripoli, Abdelrauf Beitelmal, identified administrative capacity, health care, transport, policing, waste management and early education as areas where Libya’s local administrations could particularly benefit from the backing of EU cities and regions. The mayor of Nicosia, Constantinos Yiorkadjis, proposed a platform through which EU local authorities could coordinate and channel their support for Libya.

Mr Markkula backed the idea, on behalf of the European Committee of the Regions, and said the reaction of the EU’s local and regional authorities vindicated the trust that Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, places in cities as a potential stabilising force in Libya.

The strain imposed on thousands of communities across Europe and the Mediterranean region by the movement of millions of refugees and migrants was a recurrent theme at the assembly.Mr Markkula welcomed the proposal of a job programme for refugees devised by Eurochambres, an association of businesses from across the EU.

Source: CoR-press release, 19.01.2016
photo: Twitter @EPP_CoR , cyprusmail.libsyn.com/

Prague: Better transport connection to Václav-Havel-Airport

The Václav Havel airport in Prague, one of the largest airports in Europe with around 13 million passengers, has no railway connection and therefore, an overloaded network of bus and car traffic. The capacity of bus 119, which connects the city of Prague and the airport, is completely overloaded from spring to autumn. The railway connection is still in the preparation phase; therefore, Prague is planning to use large capacity buses to improve the connection to the airport. For this purpose, different buses of foreign manufacturers will be tested in 2016. The first one is the Mercedes-Benz CapaCity L with a length of 21 m, to be tested from 10 to 19 February in operation with passengers.

"I think this is a very important step for the people of Prague and the tourism, which is a very important economic component," said the Deputy Mayor for Transport, Peter Dolínek, after a meeting of the Prague City Council on 26 January 2016.

The information for airport guests on the line 119 via the transport connection between the airport and the nearest subway station should be improved. Twelve new ticket machines will be set up in the airport building that will accept credit cards.
Prague has long been IRE member and has actively contributed to several IRE conferences.

Foto: pragueairport.co.uk/de