Cultural Networks in the Integrating Europe [antikvár]

SZABÓ Gábor President, General Assembly of Fejér County FOREWORD* Ladies and Gentlemen! Being a politician, I would only like to share some thoughts with you as your host. It gives me much pleasure—and I hope this can become a tradition—that when Kodolányi János University College organises similar conferences, the County Assembly can be a partner, providing a venue and some subsidy according to its financial means. The room we are in—let me tell those who are here for the first time—is the room of the "Parliament" of the county Our meetings, where we take the decisions, take place here, and the whole house was built 200 years ago as a site of administration and since that time is has functioned as such. It is therefore a great pleasure for me to participate in an event that can have a profound effect on the life of our county by reinforcing and spreading its reputation, and where we can introduce ourselves. I think that besides direct polidcs we do need this kind of co-operation and some marketing activity in which we do not have to perform the tasks compulsory for a local government but where we can display our patriodsm and belonging to this region, and to show that we find important the relations characterising civil cultural and social co-operation. The Local Government of Fejér County—similarly to Kodolányi János University College—can promise cooperation on a voluntary' basis, still I can say that we are proud of the development achieved by this College in the last decade. We would like a harmony between the count)' and the town of Székesfehérvár that could strengthen its role in Hungary and in the Transdanubian region as a centre, which would not only involve the economy but also public life, culture and education. Now I would like to greet you personally as your host. Last year when I was here I tried to say a few thoughts about how our local government is involved in the topics discussed in this conference—international reladons, committees, aims. I would like to emphasise some other elements now. On the one hand, last year we decided to introduce a new kind of making politics. We will not be satisfied with what the laws prescribe for local governments and its bodies and politicians. We have developed a program that tries to function not as a regulatory program but as a living, working program. We are also trying to establish a wide social co-operation in this way We started a change in county politics that tries to focus on the role of the county as a basis for common action for enterprises, organisadons, institutions, and public men living and working in the region. We would like if this co-operation did not only extend as far as the prescribed tasks.