Who are we?

For the first time delegations from the Capital Cities of Ankara, Athens, Belgrade, Budapest, Boucharest, Kiev, Chisinau, Ljubljana, Nicosia, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Tirana, Vienna, Zagreb in Athens on 5 October 1995 motivated by their mutual desire for tightening of their social, economic and cultural relations and aiming stability and progress of the Sourth Eastern European Region.

The idea was to institutionalize their strives and aspires, what was done with Protocol of Co -operation Agreement Between the Capital -Cities Of the Countries of the South-East Europe establishing cooperation in all fields of activities.

The focal point of all their efforts was creation of environment of understanding that could help heal the old conflict relations between states and ease tensions in the Region. The role of city diplomacy has been recognized as an important instrument for overcoming existing problems at the state level for the sake of the citizens' benefit in capitals concerned.

The first conference was a great success in that sense.

Right afterwards meeting have been organized in: Vienna, Bucharest, Kiev, again in Athens, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Podgorica and Nicosia.

The Conference of the Mayors has become formally recognized as an opportunity for yearly meetings of member capitals, where they could define their further cooperation and take common stands towards the most important topics in the Region.

The crucial legal document of the Conference is the Statute according to which there have been established:

- the Assembly of the Conference, consisting of the Mayors of member capitals,

- President of the Union (changing yearly following the principle that Mayor of hosting city has the role of the presiding of the meeting) and

- Executive Secretary and Permanent Secretariat-permanent function/bodies belonging traditionally to the city of Athens, as this city has been recognized as spiritus movens of this initiative.

At the fifth meeting held in Ljubljana in 2002 the Conference of the Mayors of South Eastern Europe has been developed in the Union of Central and South Eastern European Capitals, keeping the old structure with addition of one more body called Standing Committee and consisted of delegates of member cities, appointed by their Mayors.

Presently Union has two regular meetings a year:

- The first meeting is a Preparatory meeting of the Standing Committee where delegates of member capitals meet in order to prepare all details of the main gathering and is always organized by the city of Athens.

- The second meeting is a General Assembly session, followed by the Conference and is to be organized in a different city each year, possibly following the alphabetical order, but after the proposal of the candidate city and approval of the General Assembly.

Meetings have become an opportunity for the Mayors of the member Capitals to discuss diverse issues as security, EU assistance and programs, utilities, urban development, town planning, tourism.

EU membership and accessions process have become a topic of interest for all our capitals. Some of them already EU members have presented and shared their experiences and established relationships with capitals from non EU countries, in order to assist them in the accession process. Elaboration of various idea has been designed in order to create exchange of information, best practices and lead to joint projects that could be in line with EU programs.

We could say that these efforts have been recognized as main stream in Union development along with cultivation of strong ties among cities - their »smaller networks« based on local and regional interests and projects.