Due to first of technical problems the online meeting 12 January 2009.

It was not possible to set a new date for an online meeting. It will discussed during the ERB Council meeting to take place in Warmia-Mazury 24-26 February 2009 between those Rural WG members present.

All the Local Action Groups in the ERB member regions will soon be invited to an ERB LAG Conference taking place in Olsztyn 4 August 2009, and the plan is to have a Rural Wg meeting 5 August 2009.

Agenda:

1) South Baltic Rural Development Centre (SBRDC) - status on the identification of financial opportunities within the Rural Development programmes in Denmark, Poland and Sweden to further prepare the establish of SBRDC

2) ERB LAG Conference including Ukrainean participants - Warmia-Mazury Region would like to organise this joint conference, discussed at the last online meeting 21/10-08. It would be a main activity connected to a training project for new Ukrainean Local Action Groups, to be applied by Warmia-Mazury Region and including Bornholm as a partner. The training and conference is preliminary scheduled to the first week of August 2009, and the intention is to invite all LAGs in the ERB regions to join the conference, and that each LAG will have a small exhibition to promote themselves

3) Promotion of the Culinary Heritage Network, by Mr Igor Hutnikiewicz, Head of the Quality and Labelling Office in Warmia-Mazury Region

4) Young farmers cooperation, project idea to be presented

5) Coastal farming and market access, project idea to be presented by Mr Victor Sergeev, Director of Kaliningrad Institute for Retraining of agricultural specialists

Mr Igor Marek Hutnikiewicz, Head of the Quality and Labelling Office in Warmia-Mazury Region has accepted to become a new member of the ERB Rural Development Working Group, and to be the coordinator of activities to promote the culinary heritage in the ERB regions.

Igor Hutnikiewicz is already the main promoter of the European Culinary Heritage Network in Poland. Warmia-Mazury Region was the first Polish Region to join this network and October 2008 the networks annual meeting took place in Warmia-Mazury Region. A result of his efforts is that several other Polish regions are now members of the network, and more will follow.

We are happy to have Mr Hutnikiewicz as a new member of our working group!

It is not realistic on short term to apply for the establishment of a South Baltic Rural Development Centre (SBRDC), which the Rural Development Working Group (WG) has worked on since 2006.

This was the conclusion of the online meeting which took place today with participants from Blekinge, Bornholm and Warmia-Mazury regions.

Therefore the WG will continue to work in smaller steps and smaller projects. Bornholm, Blekinge and Warmia-Mazury regions will investigate the possibilities to get support from the Rural Development programmes in Denmark, Sweden and Poland to further develop the Rural Development cooperation. One concrete idea is to organise a conference during 2009 for all Local Action Groups (LAGs) in Euroregion Baltic.

Warmia-Mazury region will prepare a project with training of Ukrainean partners including a conference, which might be connected with the ERB LAG Conference.

At the online meeting an adjusted Action Plan 2008 was adopted, and it was agreed also to discuss projects within areas like Culinary Heritage, Young Farmers cooperation and Coastal Farming and access to the market.

Financed by the Polish Foreign Ministry a delegation of 23 Ukrainean local representatives and 3 representatives from Warmia-Mazury region lead by Mr Jaroslaw Sarnowski from the Department for Rural Development, had a study visit to Bornholm 4 - 7 September 2008. The study visit included introduction of the rural development policy on Bornholm, the LAG Bornholm and of the agricultural situation on the island.

The Ukrainean delegation came from the Rivne Region, which for years have been the partner region with the Warmia-Mazury Region. Since 2006 Bornholm has been involved in this cooperation, with Rural Development as one of the main priorities.

Warmia-Mazury and Bornholm are planning to cooperate on a further project with the Ukrainean partners to take place during 2009, and focusing on training of local action groups to be set up in the Rivne Region.