President of the Kotor Municipality, Vladimir Jokić with his associates hosted a delegation from Albania and representatives of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The purpose of this visit was to look at the possibility of cooperation between Kotor and Albanian cities with similar cultural heritage and current problems, on the initiative and with the help of the Foundation, which operates worldwide and offers primarily support in the field of civic education and development programs.
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centrist Christian Democratic Union. The foundation's headquarters are located in Sankt Augustin near Bonn. Globally, the KAS has 78 offices and runs programs in over 100 countries. Its current chairman is the former President of the German parliament, Norbert Lammert. It is a member of the Centre for European Studies, the official foundation and think tank of the European People's Party.
The aim of the foundation's civic education programs is, according to their official website, the “promotion of freedom and liberty, peace, and justice” through “furthering European unification, improving transatlantic relations, and deepening development cooperation”. Their function as a think-tank and consulting agency is intended to provide citizens with a basis for political action through the research and analyses of current political trends. The KAS offers more than 2,500 conferences and events each year worldwide, and actively supports the political involvement and education of intellectually gifted youth through a prestigious scholarship program as well as an ongoing comprehensive seminar program.
In the delegation were the directors of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Albania, Serbia and Montenegro, Valter Glos and Norbert Bekman Dirkes, the mayors of the Albanian cities Permet and Malakaster, Niko Šupuli and Agron Kaplanaj, the president of the Albanian Association of Agron, Agron Hakshimali, as well as the project coordinators of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Montenegro and Albania, Sanija Šljivančanin and Klaudja Zerva.
The President of the Municipality of Kotor, Vladimir Jokić, introduced the members of the delegation with the work of local self-government, the development goals of the Municipality of Kotor, as well as the problems faced by the local administration. He expressed readiness to establish further cooperation with Albanian cities, especially in the areas of economic development, culture, tourism and utilization of the European Union funds, as well as further cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
The representatives of the Foundation thanked the opportunity to speak with the representatives of Kotor and offered assistance in establishing contacts and cooperation in all fields with local self-governments of similar historical, geographical, sociological and cultural features as well as challenges in solving problems at the local level.
The mayors of the Albanian cities of Malakaster and Permet expressed their special interest in establishing cooperation with Kotor on a project basis in the context of the joint candidature of EU financial support within the framework of the available European territorial cooperation programs, pointing out that the Municipality of Kotor has seen some successes in the field of EU funds as a trusted partner. On this occasion, it was agreed that the Municipality of Kotor will jointly work on the preparation of project proposals with Albanian cities within the framework of future call for projects with the aim of solving common challenges and achieving the goals in accordance with the defined development priorities.
