Comments and arguments for our top three (the administration group) from Valka/ Valga (Katra Kikkas).
Top 3
All top three twin cities had same good cooperation points. For example cooperation on mayors level, cooperation, when common problems need solutions, cooperation between police, hospital etc, traditional city twin events, common projects, common marketing (logo etc), cooperation on grass-root level, politicians willingness to cooperate, cooperation mostly doesn’t depend on the elections.
ValgaValka and Frankfurt(Oder)-Slubice are in the best positions, because they cooperate with other city twins (are the members of CTA). Gubin-Guben saw the barriers between two cities, the mayor of Gubin said many times, that they are still two states and it seemed, that they weren’t equal partners.
On the other hand Valga-Valka (both) have youth councils, which cooperate (common events, common planning) and Valga-Valka meetings (every month), where participators are both mayors and vice-mayors, both development departments, representatives from local councils, representatives from both youth councils etc and Valga-Valka has also Latvian-Estonian institute, which deals with cross-border cooperation. On the other side, Frankfurt(Oder)-Slubice has competence team (instead of youth councils) and cross-border cooperation development centre. What depends on Valga-Valka and Frankfurt(Oder)-Slubice, then in both cities, the cities seemed as equal partners.
1.Valga/Valka
2.Frankfurt/Slubice
3.Guben/Gubin
We saw the willingness to cooperate and maybe even to join City Twin Association. We were impressed, that city twin, which isn’t the member of the association cooperates that well.
Others
· They see barriers not opportunities
· Lack of youth participation
· Lack of common planning
· Not equal partners
Recommendations
o Sustainable youth participation
o “Special people” – devoted and working only for the cross-border cooperation
o More common planning