Sacele (Romania) and Haidari (Greece), two partner cities in the NeT-TOPIC project, are currently in the process of twinning their cities. After learning about each other’s features and specificities within the context of network collaboration, they discovered a series of common points between them. Some of the most important are: the fact of being a peripheral city located next to a central city in a metropolitan area (Brasov and Athens) and the fact that both are crossed by a main road (DN1A and Athens-Corinthus road), two relevant features as far as NeT-TOPIC thematic content is concerned.
During the First Workshop held in Haidari in February 2010, the mayors of Sacele and Haidari had the chance to meet and discuss the twinning of the cities. The cities have agreed to collaborate in areas of common interest, using modern forms of collaboration specific to the current stage of development in their countries. Sacele and Haidari aim to develop economic cooperation and, for this purpose, intend to favour activities with an economic and commercial character, as well as activities related to citizenship and private entrepreneurship. Development of an industrial and commercial collaboration at local level will be especially supported, including investments and direct cooperation between private entrepreneurs. Both cities will also give special attention to collaboration between small and medium private entrepreneurs. They will participate in exhibitions and fairs within their countries, where they will be able to agree on cooperation actions and exchanges with foreign partners on a common basis. Partners also aim to increase cultural and economical exchanges and for this purpose will facilitate collaboration between local associations and folk ensembles, organisations and institutes. Partners also intend to promote contact between people from the fields of art and culture, and to encourage collaboration between schools through student and teacher exchanges. Both cities wish to apply to the Europe for Citizen Programme, Measure 1.1 – “Town Twinning and Networks of Twinned Towns”, to get the relationship off to a good start.
