On December 16th, was held the administrative council of the network in Anderlecht, Belgium.
Paris - Heritage and sustainable development
On Thursday December 7, the French ministry of culture and communication organizes a national meeting on  "Sustainable Development and culture", intended for architects and heritage responsible in the cities and territories of art and history.
The AVEC' general delegate, Raphael Souchier will present the quality approach and the project of European label "Qualicities", to support the setting up of local policies of sustainable development by the historical cities and territories in Europe. Qualicities is developed by 15 member cities of the network in 8 countries, with the financial support of the EU and the technical support of AFNOR. It will be opened to any city interested by the approach after its finalization, in the 2° six-month period 2007.
www.qualicities.org

November 14, Raphael Souchier, general delegate of the AVEC network, took part in the international forum organized by Europa Nostra with the head office of UNESCO in Paris, on "the cultural heritage in Kosovo: from discord to reconciliation".  Kosovo, ravaged by years of inter-ethnic conflict which led to war at the end of the Milosevic era, is currently under United Nations' mandate.  Europa Nostra has worked for one year on an exercise of high stunt-flying in the field of the "diplomacy of people", bringing (with the blessing of the European and international authorities) the ex-belligerents - in a still very volatile situation, to sit down at the same table and to develop relations of confidence and cooperate to protect the common heritage.
 
If, in the field of the heritage in particular, solidarity means something today on the European territory, watch  Kosovo! The religious heritage suffered a lot during and after the conflict; huge reconstruction' efforts have been undertaken since, nothing compared to the extent of the destruction unfortunately; but it is also the vernacular heritage which disappears today, victim of the lack of means. The administration council of the AVEC network will study, during its next meeting, in Anderlecht, what kind of support the network and its members can bring to this suffering region.
 

The first meeting to set up a Croatian network of cultural cities inspired by AVEC network - OSIJEK , November 3, 2006.

Today, based on its European network experience, Osijek' city intends to better promote the Croatian continental cities towards tourism and heritage. The future Croatian network will bring together inland' cities and will work to inform citizens about the importance of their heritage, and sow awareness in amongst youth. It is important to underline the educational character of the network as well as its cultural and economic fallout.

Generally speaking, Osijek' initiative was welcomed with much enthusiasm. At the end of the meeting the participants proposed that Croatian cities should establish a network or an association with legal statuses in the Croatian republic. The City of Osijek will propose these statuses with a plan to submit them to the cities of the future network, for further suggestions and propositions.

The next step is to organize an assembly to present the network and the cultural heritage of the interested cities in co-operation with the local tourism board in the objective to sign a charter and to create a new brand.
 
To show all the interest of creating a network of co-operation, Mr. Jeno Ujvari, the honorary president of the AVEC network and the director of Pécs' heritage house, presented to the participants AVEC network background, its fields of activities as well as how to join.
He presented also two important projects of the network, the European label QUALICITIES' project and the project of European Master MAGISTHERE.

The participants, who intend to join AVEC network, will contact soon the city of Osijek to fill in the necessary forms.