Brussels, 01/02/2005 (Agence Europe) On 3 February in Brussels the European Commissioner for education and culture, Jan Figel, will be awarding the “Gold Stars for Town Twinning”. This event every year awards ten European Union subsidised prizes for projects that support European integration. The ceremony will be organised in the framework of a consultative forum on 3-4Feburary and will bring together Commission, Council, European Parliament, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions representatives, who will be discussing the “Future Programme for Pro-Active European Citizenship” (which succeeds the current programme on 1 January 2007).
Set up in 1989 by the European Parliament, this Community support action for twining projects created 1455 projects in towns and districts in Member States which received a subsidy in 2004. Countries receiving most of the subsidies were: France with 347 projects and Germany, 338 projects. The Commission examines the cases and prioritised meeting in which towns and districts of candidate countries could take part in the new twining agreements, as well as in the projects involving small districts or geographically deprived zones, as well as multilateral meetings and projects involving young people or other deprived groups. Twinning provided the opportunity to learn more on a daily basis about citizens from other countries in Europe and to develop join projects on issues of common interest such as local integration, the environment, economic development and cultural differences, highlighted the Commission. Towns and districts seeking subsidies can submit their projects to the European Commission according to two categories: conferences and seminars (conferences on European themes as part of the town twinning projects and training seminars for those organising twinning operations) and citizen meetings in the context of twinning between towns and local districts. This year, three projects will receive the “Gold Star” in the first category and seven projects in the second.