José María Costa, President of Atlantic Cities and mayor of Viana do Castelo participated in the 5th Congress of Local Governments, in Krakow, Poland. The event took place between the 8th and 9th of April 2019 and had more than 2000 participants from all over Europe.
The president of Atlantic Cities took part in the panel discussion “Cooperation and Exchange of Experiences as key to success? – The role and importance of Inter-municipal Associations and Agreements”, where he emphasized on the importance of regionalization for the development of territorial cooperation, which is key to eliminate existing differences in border territories.
José María Costa highlighted as well the importance of promoting a common policy of training and cooperation for training centers in business clusters that are emerging on both sides of the border, since the cooperation nowadays is directed towards sectors such as innovation, mobility and knowledge.
This axis includes, for example, European projects such as Ecoris3 which is financed by the Interreg Atlantic Area program. Atlantic Cities is part of this project which aims to facilitate the transfer of innovation and knowledge through local companies and regional organizations as intermediary actors. The project gathers 8 partners (4 are part of the Atlantic Area) and 2 of them are founding members of the Atlantic Cities network: San Sebastian (lead partner) and Cork.