[fse-esf] A report from the NOC

[anna.hellstrom.fk at transport.se]

Hello everyone!

From the NOC we have had the ambition to send out some information around 
the process in the Nordic countries and the Malmo ESF for some time. Below 
follows a short account of the work done so far, a bit later than we 
hoped, but nevertheless. 

Since we all met in Istanbul the NOC has continued to work hard to find 
the necessary funds and to mobilise a greater number of organisations and 
movements. The trade unions were asked to fund up to 160 000 euros of the 
total budget and we have managed to secure almost half of that sum from 
them. Furthermore, the Malmo municipality decided in January to contribute 
with 270 000 euro and a full time contact person to help develop the 
organisation – a very welcome decision for us. To sum up: of the estimated 
total budget of 1 700 000 euro we have so far secured about 25 %. 

When it comes to trade union mobilisation, we now have the LO on board, 
and Wanja Lundby-Wedin of the LO and also presently the president of ETUC 
has asked us if she can speak at the opening on the 17th of September. We 
also have a few more trade unions on board. 
We have made three mobilising tours, two are going on right now in Central 
and Eastern Europe, one in south-west Europe and one was done in the 
Baltic countries during the last weeks. We have secured some of the funds 
needed for the solidarity fund, which will so far cover the costs for 
participation for the countries needing visas for Sweden. 
The Global Day of Action and Mobilisation on the 26th of January was 
manifested in five Swedish towns with some very successful events.

The NOC now has 51 member organisations throughout the Nordic countries 
and more are joining every day.

The webpage esf2008.org has undergone a number of changes as you might 
have noticed, and we are sorry that it hasn’t always been a useful tool 
for you so far – we have received comments about this and have tried to 
find the best solutions to solve the problems. There have been technical 
problems but the latest board meeting decided to add three web technicians 
to help out with the everyday maintenance and we also hope to have the 
program form up and running by the time of the Berlin EPA. We now have 
access to translating the texts on the site, and as soon as possible it 
should be available in more languages than Swedish and English. In the 
meantime, we’d like to thank you for your patience!

Also, we need to think about the future for the openesf-page. It is a very 
good tool for the ESF process, but it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility 
of the NOC to keep it running financially, which is why we intend to have 
a discussion about it in the European web group in Berlin to bring to the 
EPA for a discussion and decision. 

We also get a lot of questions about principal matters, i.e. e on 
sponsorship and visibility. The NOC would very much like the input of the 
European experiences on the matter, as we feel it is necessary to 
establish some principal documents on these matters for the Malmo ESF. We 
have already started to draw up some initial ideas on this, which will 
also be discussed in Berlin.

There was a delegation from the NOC at the meeting of the European Program 
Group in Paris, and we felt it was a useful and interesting discussion as 
well as a lot of hard work and negotiations of course. We hope for a 
constructive discussion in Berlin. 

That is the short information for now. We look forward to seeing you all 
in Berlin!

Anna Hellstrom, 
NOC 
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