The Tisza River Development Program
Second Working Group Meeting

Brussels EU Parliament Alterio Spinelli A4G304, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. September 21, 2006.

Minutes of meeting

As a result of the working group meeting held on the 10th of March 2006 in Brussels in the framework of the IHLET program and in cooperation with RETC (Regionális Környezettechnológiai Központ), the first phase of the legal setting up of the 48 offices in the five respective countries was completed. The participants all agreed that all the offices would need to be established parallel, at the same time. The realization of this second working group meeting was essential to official close the first phase of the preparatory work.

During the meeting, the following issues were discussed:

• The structure and operating principles of the 48 offices under the IHLET program.
• The text of the international Charta in the framework of the IHLET program.
• Presentation of "The establishing of the information society within the Tisza watershed - subsystem of social issues" work materials.

At the meeting the following tasks were agreed upon:

• The setting up of the 48 independent companies, who would be operating the offices, will happen within the next 90 days. After the setting up, the offices will start preparing their relevant professional work programs and finalize the wording of the Charta. The workshop participants will contribute to this preparatory work in a joint effort based on their commitments and competencies.
• It was accepted that the Charta should be signed in Cluj Napoca. If the Cluj Napoca town management has no objection for this proposal, then the Cluj Napoca Charta will be signed in the spring of 2007 by the parties involved and potentially by the three respective EU Commissioners. Preconditions for the signing of the Charta would be that the involved Governments' technical committees have endorsed the content of the Charta.
• After the registration of the IHLET program in 2005 January, the preparation of the equal opportunities subprogram could already start targeting at the settlements, which do not meet the basic social needs. The objective of this program is to improve the employment conditions of the principally Roma communities. The international nature of this program makes it possible to concentrate on the real solution of the problems, proposing macro level solutions based on reliable and real data gathered at micro levels.
• The offices established in the framework of the IHLET program and in cooperation with RETC (Regionális Környezettechnológiai Központ) will have the following ownership structure. To structure the previously mentioned complex problem collection and to apply real solutions to them, it is essential that different specialized tertiary institutions be involved. In light of that, the program management has already initiated negotiations and will continue doing so with the management of the relevant tertiary institutions. We envisage that the legal completion of the preparation phase will occur in all five countries by the end of December 2006. The success of this very important phase is highly dependent upon the professional support of the five respective governments. To accomplish so, the participants consider as vital importance the continuous flow of information during the upcoming three months.

Provisional Agenda:

2:00 PM - 2:10 PM

Opening by Bela Jarolics, Director, IHLET

2:10 PM - 5:00 PM

Project status review and working group discussions moderated by Bela Jarolics:

• Review project status summary overall and by country.
• Review of the work plans for the 48 network offices in the five countries.
• Review next steps by the country representatives for the upcoming three months, leading to the signing of the Charta.
• Discussion about the signing of the Charta, logistics and other operations aspects.
• Review other pending matters.

5:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Conclusions and closing remarks by Bela Jarolics.