On 30th March , UDITE President Paul Gatt made a study visit to Brussels to meet several institutions and partners. Paul was accompanied by Ronny Frederickx (Executive Director), Jack Kruf (President PRIMO Europe) and Simon Pascoe (UDITE Brussels representative).
He was a guest at the Annual Meeting of the Brussels Federation of City Secretaries (Fédération Bruxelloise des Secrétaires Communaux) where he presented the activities of UDITE.
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In the morning a meeting took place with Carol Thomas, Advisor on Governance and International Relations at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions to discuss the recent publication on Public Services (see article below), work ongoing on the Sustainable Development Goals and preparations for the CEMR congress that takes place in Austria in 2020.
Paul went on to meet with Thomas Wobben, Director at the European Committee of the Regions where Thomas discussed UDITE's involvement in the European Week of Regions and Cities and the the Regional Hubs platform.
Joanna Drake, Deputy Director General of DG Environment in the European Commission later met with Paul and colleagues to discuss Green Week 2019 and the theme of good implementation of environment legislation and the TAIEX Peer 2 Peer review funding.
He closed the day, meeting business partner Veolia’s director David Berman and KPMG Brussels representative Mercedes Sanchez Varela to explore new partnerships.
UDITE will continue to engage with the European institutions and local and regional partners in Brussels in order to raise it its profile at the European level at this important time for the European Union with all the changes that new Commission, European Parliament may bring that have a significant policy and funding impact on the local and regional level. In particular, the recent publication of the European Commissions recommendations 2019-2024 are particularly important in this regard.
