The Plenary Assembly of the heads of government of the Alps-Adriatic Working Community took place on November 19th, 2009 in Villa Manin (Friuli Venezia Giulia). It was chaired by Regional President Renzo Tondo. A „Declaration of Villa Manin“, was adopted, which aims to form the Working Community into a „Macro Region „Alps-Adriatic-Pannonia“ in order to take full advantage of the EU-programming period 2014-2020. An international conference, which will set the course for this development is planned for the first half of 2010. An official farewell was given to Hellwig Valentin, General Secretary of the Alps-Adriatic Working Community and head of the Carinthian Alps-Adriatic Branch Office, who will retire by the end of this year.

See full press release:

http://www.alpeadria.org/english/files/Arge_Alpen_Adria_Vollversammlung_2009_ENG.doc

Equal chances for women and men

Promoting equal opportunities for women and men is the goal of the expert group "Equal Opportunities in the Alps-Adriatic-Area" of the Alps-Adriatic Working Community. At the beginning of November the Expert Group, which is under the chairmanship of Helga Grafschafter (Carinthia), met in Klagenfurt. Supporting political and economic participation is the main focus of work. The Expert Group wants to forward the developed proposals to the Alps-Adriatic Working Community. A conference for female politicians is also planned.

Alps-Adriatic Music Nights

The series of concerts organized by the Carinthian Branch Office of the Alps-Adriatic Working community was continued this autumn with 3 bands, all in the Jazz Cellar Kamot in Klagenfurt: Hamlet and His Latin Jazz Experience (http://www.latinjazzexperience.com/) with musicians from Austria, Italy and Croatia gave an energetic concert on 25th of October. On 20th of November both the young Austrian singer/songwriter with Slovenian roots Jean Nolan (http://www.jeannolan.com/) and the Heigeign (http://www.heigeign.com/) from Burgenland performed in front of an enthusiastic audience.

Styria released Alps-Adriatic Jazz Ensemble-CD

The Styrian Branch Office of the Alps-Adriatic Working community released a CD of the performance of the Alps-Adriatic Jazz Ensemble of its last years concert during the Alps-Adriatic 30th anniversary tour. This concert took place on 9th of December 2008 at the Stockwerk in Graz. Included on the album is the unique jazz version of the Alps-Adriatic hymn. The Alps-Adriatic Jazz Ensemble are Michael Erian (Austria), Jure Pukl (Slovenia), Renato Chicco (Italy) and Andras Mohay (Hungary). This year the Ensemble performed during a summer tour in Batumi at the Black Sea Jazz Festival in Georgia, In Trieste (Italy), Izola (Slovenia) and Groznjan (Croatia), featuring also Nevio Zanninoto (Italy) and Robert Jukic (Slovenia). Further concerts are planned for the coming year.

Assembly of European Regions discusses climate changes

About 700 delegates convened in Belfort in the French region of Franche-Comté and discussed climate change. Therefore at the end of the conference the Belfort Appeal was adopted. http://www.aer.eu/news/2009/2009112702.html. In the AER Communicating Europe Award 2009 in the category “Communicating the European Elections” the winner is the Alps-Adriatic Working Community member Styria for its project “We go Europe – Europe in Styria”. As most youth friendly European region Somerset (UK) was awarded. http://www.aer.eu/news/2009/2009112701.html

Next years general assembly will take place in Istanbul, where the 25th anniversary of the AER will be celebrated.