Until the 10th of September, public service providers, public service users, stakeholders, citizens and other interested parties enjoy the opportunity to contribute to the European Commission consultation on the implementation of the Altmark-package on Services of general economic interest (SGEI).
 
 
The Liaison Agency Flanders-Europe and Enterprise Europe Network Flanders invite, on the eve of the deadline, all interested parties for an exchange of experiences on the topic. Christof Lessenich (European Commission, DG Competition) will present the results of the Member States reports and explain the objectives of the consultation.

Three European regions will share their method of implementing the Altmark- package on Services of general economic interest.
 
Information and registration: http://www.vleva.eu/en/altmark

Flemish event on “Regions and Sustainable Development” – 4-5 October 2010 – Call for regional contributions
Belgium will hold the EU presidency in the second half of 2010. Within this context, the region of Flanders will organise a two-day event on Sustainable Development. The event will take place in Brussels on 4 and 5 October 2010 and will be linked with the Open Days 2010 of the Committee of the Regions (CoR).
The event will focus on ‘Regions and Sustainable Development’: the relevance of the ‘Beyond GDP’-debate for EU regions and the ‘governance’ aspects of the ‘EU 2020-strategy’ and other horizontal EU strategies at regional or local level.
Flanders and the CoR will organise an Open Days 2010 workshop titled ‘New indicators for Sustainable Development and a better quality of life: policy issues for EU cities and regions’ (title tbc) on Tuesday 5 October 2010 in Brussels. Prior to this event, Flanders would like to organise a meeting/workshop with EU regions on Monday 4 October 2010 in the afternoon (Brussels). The workshop will allow for a cross-regional exchange of good practices and experiences with regional sustainable development policies. This will provide input for the call for a regional approach to EU-policy making, with regional policy objectives and indicators for sustainable development, that Flanders will convey at the Open Days 2010 workshop.
We invite regions to bring forward cases, speakers and experts, to present and discuss experiences (either good or bad) with regional sustainable development policies within the EU policy framework and objectives. The workshop will attempt to build a ’knowledge network for SD-policies’ that will facilitate cross-regional learning and exchange in the future.
To do so, we call for regions to share best practices and experiences with sustainable development and indicators to the standard form attached. 
1. Website: registration and practical information
All practical information as well as registration forms can be found online at http://do.vlaanderen.be/nlapps/docs/default.asp?fid=108.

2. Call for contribution + Template for regional contributions
We would like to involve the regions already in the preparatory phase of the workshop by collecting information on their experiences and practices. This information could then be made available to the other regions prior to the conference as to facilitate the discussions at the workshop.
We therefore kindly ask you to read the “call for contribution” (this has been sent to you before) and fill in the template form by 10th July and send it back to Flanders to.
-          Dieter Braekeveld (Dieter.braekeveld@dar.vlaanderen.be), phone +32 2 55 34028 or mobile +32 491 076948
-          Yanne Goossens (Yanne.goossens@lne.vlaanderen.be), phone +32 2 553 27 59 or mobile +32 499 54 65 29
Through this form we are compiling best practices and experiences and we solicit for your interest in presenting your case at the workshop.
 

Flemish Government: Education for Sustainable Development and Action Plan for Sustainable Public Procurement
 

The Flemish government adopted an implementation plan for the UNECE Strategy on the UN Decade for Education for SD (DESD). In Flanders, some exemplary work is being done within two transition processes: one concerning closing material loops and one concerning sustainable building and living. Transition processes strive to achieve structural socioeconomic transformations. Networks will bring together individuals and organisations (universities, industry, governments and NGO’s) in order to co-create breakthroughs. The transition process concerning closing material loops focuses on local, short and transparant material loops. The transition process concerning sustainable building and living strives to have only sustainable buildings being built by 2020 and an increase in retrofitting existing dwellings. Moreover, the Flemish government recently adopted an Action Plan for sustainable public procurement. Based on a progressive, iterative process of 4 subsequent Flemish action plans the target is to reach 100% sustainable public procurement by 2020 in Flanders.