On 9 February, the 8th Joint Committee Flanders – Poland was held in Brussels. Secretary-General Koen Verlaeckt and Polish Deputy State Secretary Renata Szczęch signed the new work programme for the next three years. Flanders and Poland have been working closely together for almost 25 years.
The new work programme contains further cooperation in the fields of (higher) education, agriculture and fisheries, welfare, public health and health care, tourism, culture and sport, environment, mobility and infrastructure, research and development and local authorities.
A special agenda item on the Commission was the commemoration of the liberation of Flanders from the German Nazi occupation. And especially the role in the liberation of the Flemish cities Poperinge, Ieper, Roeselare, Tielt, Ghent and Lokeren, of the 1st Polish Armored Division of Commander Stanislaw Maczek. An exhibition about this Polish participation in the liberation is now being prepared by Polish and Flemish experts. The opening in Warsaw is planned for June 2018. Afterwards the exhibition travels to Gdansk and will come to Flanders in 2019, 75 years after the end of the occupation.
General Representation of the Government of Flanders in Poland and the Baltic States
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