After having been reported several times due to the global sanitary emergency, on Friday 9th October 2020 took finally place in Brussels the ALDA General Assembly, broadcasted online, so that each member of ALDA as well as the whole staff could participate, in accordance with rules related to anti-COVID-19 spreading. It was a very significant day, which marked an essential appointment in the ALDA annual calendar and saw the participation of special guests and keynote speakers.
The all-day long General Assembly was officially opened by Mr Oriano Otočan, President of ALDA, followed by Mr Gilles Pelayo, Head of Unit of the programme Europe for Citizens, Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and Mr Xavier Cadoret, Vice-President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, who both expressed their greetings and best wished for ALDA’s present and future achievements.
This introduction was followed by a statutory part, during which a number of important internal documents underwent the members’ approval. Afterwards, the Extraordinary General Assembly began, and the members had been asked to express their opinions on a series of major decisions.
Among the highlights of the Assembly was the renewal of ALDA Governing Board with the consequent elections of its twelve new components (which will be presented in a separate article).
An eventful ALDA Assembly: statutory changes and relevant decisions, keynote speakers and the election of a new Governing Board
The afternoon was fully aimed at celebrating the 20 years of ALDA, through the launch of the recent Activity Report, the new Strategic Views 2020-2024 and the presentation of ALDA’s flagship initiatives, introduced by Antonella Valmorbida, ALDA Secretary General, with the interventions of the following keynote speakers:
– Mr Paolo Ciccarelli, Head of the European Commission’s DG DEVCO, intervened on the “European Support to Local Democracy”
– Mr Oriano Otočan, ALDA President, presented the “Balkan network for Local Democracy”
– Mr Denis Schrey, Head of the Multinational Development Policy Dialogue of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, for the “Local Democracy solving Local problems”, a very recent output of the project “Empowering Local Authorities & Civil Society to Deliver Solutions with Participatory Democracy”.
Keeping our tradition, the annual General Assembly ended with the presentation of the new members of ALDA, cheered with an ad-hoc “ALDA-member” certificate, which will be sent to each of them as welcome gift and acknowledgement of their presence in the wide network of ALDA!