CESCI held its annual General Assembly meeting on May 9, with in person presence. A large number of members and their representatives participated in the general assembly meeting, every voting was successful.

As always, the first and most important agenda item at the May meeting was the adoption of the last year’s report and public benefit report. The report highlighted that the professional plans of the association were fulfilled in 2023, the conditions related to the legal status of public benefit, and the financing of the association’s activities is on solid footing.

Secretary General Gyula Ocskay highlighted several activities from the extremely diverse professional work, such as the six-year long #ACCESS Hungarian-Slovak project implemented jointly with CESCI Carpathia; the establishment of the European Cross-Border Platform, the inaugural meeting of which will be organised by CESCI and AEBR during the Hungarian EU Presidency; the participation of the research group established by UPS and CESCI in the work of the Transfrontier Euro-Institutional Network (TEIN); the support of European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation along the border and certain activities related to Ukraine (V4 conference in Košice, collection of medical instruments for hospitals in Subcarpathian County, final tasks of the REVITAL I project, compilation of a resource map offering EU tender opportunities for Ukrainian applicants).

The main report was followed by the reports of the Board, the Supervisory Board, the two partner associations (CESCI Carpathia and CESCI Balkans), the UPS-CESCI Research Group on Cross-Border Cooperation, and the evaluation of CESCI’s gender equality plan.

The second item on the agenda dealt with the office holders of the association. The general assembly elected a new board member (István Szabó) and a new supervisory board member (Judit Árvai-Füleki) by secret ballot, and then adopted the updated annex to the association’s Statutes, as well as the new rules regarding the election of officials.

In the third item on the agenda, director Mátyás Jaschitz presented the work and financial plan for 2024. Regarding the work plan, he said that this year the implementation of the current phase of the #ACCESS project would tie up most of the association’s capacities, but in addition, the association would coordinate the professional and communication activities of the BorderLabs CE project; would actively participate in the organisation of the series of Hungarian presidential events focusing on borders; continue the evaluation of Interreg programmes and compile several tourism action plans. And if the project submitted to the ESPON programme’s call for proposals on border governance, in which CESCI participated at the invitation of the University of Erlangen, is awarded, new international cooperation will be possible.

In relation to the financial plan, he emphasised that personnel costs are still the association’s main expenses, which are covered by stable revenues, partly from domestic sources and partly from international projects. The association’s planned income this year is HUF 232.73 million, and the planned expenditure is HUF 220.38 million.
The members present at the general meeting acknowledged with satisfaction the proposals on the efficient and safe operation of the association, and they were voted on without a dissenting vote.