Syros, Greece Summary

Home , Kea (island), South Aegean, Syros

Partnership Thematic Network – 7th Meeting 26th and 27th September 2017: Syros, Greece

Summary The 7th meeting of the Thematic Network on Partnership was hosted by the Greek ESF Managing Authority in Ermoupoli, capital of island Syros in Greece, between 26th and 27th September 2017. The meeting brought together 21 participants, 15 from Managing Authorities/Intermediate Bodies, 3 from national NGOs and 1 from the European Commission. Its objective was to familiarise participants with the activities that are carried out through partnerships supported by the European Social Fund among various actors in the region of South Aegean.

Agenda: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1179

Participants: Christofi Katerina (EYSEKT – Greek Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism), Churchill Andy (Network for Europe), Doyen Marianne (European Commission), Gałka Ewa (Centrum Pisop), Hörnlund Hanna (The Swedish ESF Council), Kyrkoglou Christos (EYSEKT), Lenna Georgina (EYSEKT), Meyers Caroline (ESF Agency Flanders), Pritchard Ruth (Pobal), Pruszanowski Norbert (Polish Craft Association), Reuter Bettina (German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs), Stott Leda (Thematic Expert, AEIDL), Theodoropoulou Miranda (EYSEKT), Topolovec Mihael (AEIDL), Tseliou Alexandra (EYSEKT), Van Peer Ria (Social and Economic Council of Flanders), Argyropoulou Loukia (Managing Authority of Regional Operational Program of Southern Aegean), Adamopoulou Agapi (Managing Authority of Regional Operational Program of Southern Aegean), Maragos Antonis (Cyclades Chamber of Commerce), Papamakarios Mannuel (KEA), Panagiotis Theodorakis (Cyclades Chamber of Commerce). Key action points:

 ECCP Review (led by Pobal, Ireland): A questionnaire to be sent to MAs and EC desk officers; recommendations for changes to ECCP to be sent to EC by end of January; peer review of partnership practices received to date.  Involvement of stakeholders and local partners: Recommendations on how to better involve stakeholders drafted by NGO members; sharing of good practices on how MAs use technical assistance; ideas about methodologies to be used for better partnership involvement of local actors to be shared among members.

All presentations from the meeting are saved in the Library of the Partnership TN on the ESF Transnational Platform webpage. To access the Library user needs to be logged-in with his/her ECAS account.

Day 1: 26th September, Cyclades Chamber of Commerce, Syros 1. Welcome and aims of the meeting; Christos Kyrkoglou and Leda Stott

Christos Kyrkoglou from the ESF Greece provided an introduction to the meeting by thanking the co-organisers in Syros and the participants. He gave a brief explanation of the objectives of the Thematic Network on Partnership which looks at the Article 10 of the ESF Regulation on transnational cooperation. One of the main pieces of work carried out by Partnership TN is the review of the European Code of Conduct on Partnership (ECCP) and recommendations for better implementation of partnership principles in the next ESF programming period.

Christos also highlighted the reason for this meeting taking place on the island of Syros in Greece. The Greek Managing Authority is currently leading the Partnership TN and wanted to introduce the activities of the Regional Managing Authorities and to facilitate the exchange of knowledge with regional partners in Greece. The aim of this meeting is to provide members of the Partnership TN with ‘on-the-ground’ experience of how Greek regional actors implement partnership principles. 2. Updates on the work of Partnership TN

Leda Stott, the thematic expert for the Partnership TN, continued with an introduction to the network and an update on its past and future activities.

The TN is currently comprised of 8 Managing Authorities and several NGOs and social partners. The Partnership TN mainly looks at how partnership principles can be used in the ESF as well as in other Thematic Networks and Structural Funds. Partnership is a transversal topic that goes across the themes addressed by the ESF through transnational cooperation and its thematic networks, and has potential for a greater impact on future policy design. The TN operates through the rotating leadership of national Managing Authorities every 6 months with each ‘leader’ committing to produce certain pieces of work. In this regard, Ireland, the country leading the Partnership TN in the previous 6 months, is driving the work on the review of the ECCP. Greece will be looking at the development of the database for sharing good practices on partnership.

Leda is also leading on work a dossier on the theme of co-production which emerged as a topic for inquiry during the PTN meeting in Dublin in October 20161. The dossier focus has now been widened and will that draw from the knowledge of all the Thematic Networks within the ESF Transnational Platform under the leadership of the PTN.

Leda continued with an overview of the work that has been done on the review of the ECCP. First, she revisited the six key principles mentioned by the ECCP: representativeness, transparency, ongoing involvement, review and evaluation, capacity-building/institutional strengthening and mutual exchange/learning. The Partnership TN has been looking at how far these principles are still fit for purpose. At the last meeting in May participants concluded that the language in which the principles are formulated could be more inclusive. There have also been calls for the ECCP to better promote the sharing of partnership principles across countries and regions, and making the code obligatory.

The ECCP review is being carried out through the work of two working groups: one looking at the involvement of stakeholders, and the other looking at impact on policies. To date, the Partnership TN has collected a number of partnership practices from across the thematic networks and has received about 35 examples from different actors, sectors and funds. From the received practices it can be seen that partnerships are multi-level and address a range of

1 https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/sites/esf/files/miro_griffiths_co-production.pdf 2

themes and focus areas. The next step will be to develop a database of the partnership practices received that would be publically available through the ESF Transnational Platform. At the same time, the review work also aims to establish better connections with policy- makers, to search and promote new forms of partnership, and to enforce a bottom-up approach to working collaboratively.

3. The implementation of the partnership principle within the Southern Aegean Regional Operational Programme (ROP) - Managing Authority: Argyropoulou Loukia and Adamopoulou Agapi

Presentation: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1183

Under the 2014-2020 National Strategic Framework in Greece there are 20 Operational Programmes with a budget of €24 billion. 13 of them are Regional Operational Programmes (ROP).

The ROP of the South Aegean covers 39 islands with less than 3,000 inhabitants. The budget of this regional ROP is €168.2 million and it combines various European Structural and Investment Funds (mainly the ERDF and ESF).

The funding for the South Aegean Regional OP is managed by the South Aegean Monitoring Committee which has 44 members from local governments, social partners, MAs, etc. The decision-making process in the South Aegean Monitoring Committee is based upon consultation procedures using ‘Diavlos’ – an IT tool used for the implementation of the consultation procedures. The public consultation for the Smart Specialisation Strategy and the 2014-2020 Operational Programme was completed in January 2014 (www.aegean2020.gr). The Monitoring Committee also runs evaluation programmes and information and communication activities which are gathered on the webpage www.pepna.gr Questions/comments from participants

What are the results of consultations?  An effective cooperation between MA, stakeholders and social partners. Informal communication between partners also plays an important role.

How do you implement consultations in an ‘unofficial’ way in order to design activities related to the OPs?  Meetings are organised on a continuous basis.

What are the challenges of implementing partnership principles?  The biggest challenge is the distance between the islands. Another challenge is also the level of knowledge and readiness of some stakeholders for creating partnerships. Furthermore, different islands have different capacities for applying to calls for proposals for the EU funds.

One of the notions that you have stated needs to be added to the formulation of the partnership principles within the ECCP is the notion of trust. What do you mean by trust?  Trust in the sense of partnership can mean respect for diversity and respect for the resources that each partner brings.

Are the projects being carried out in the Aegean small or large?  There are currently a lot of small projects but there could be changes to this in future.

Leda Stott: The work on the review of the ECCP has so far shown that good partnership practices exist but there is a lack of adequate reporting about them. There is also not enough time for MAs to discuss the challenges that networking opportunities pose for creating partnership and/or the evaluation of the partnership practices.

Is membership in the Monitoring Committees for the South Aegean Region only open to social partners?  In Greece there is no law for establishing the Monitoring Committee and therefore membership of the Committee is not prescribed.

In Poland, there is a special law on the implementation of the Operational Programme.2 The law prescribes that MAs should form partnerships with social partners and stakeholders. Do you have the same procedure in Greece or the South Aegean?  Social partners are members of the Monitoring Committees of the Regional OPs in the South Aegean.

In Sweden, there is a law on partnership for regional partnerships.3 However, this does not solve all the problems of establishing partnerships.

Is there any estimate of whether all social partners can cope with the agenda of the MAs in the sense that they can understand the Operational Programmes?  In the South Aegean Region not all the members of the Monitoring Committees are in a position to take decisions.

In addressing the issue of the implementation of partnerships between 39 islands in the South Aegean, how can online communication help? What practices or knowledge from other national MAs would be of use for you? It is helpful when working across long distances but face-to-face communication is also important.

Do you have a special budget within Regional OPs for supporting the participation of stakeholders and social partners?  There is an existing technical assistance budget for this kind of partnership within investment priority 8.7 of the National Investment Programme.

4. A Stakeholder’s view on Partnership: Cyclades Chamber of Commerce: Antonis Maragos

Presentation: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1176

The Cyclades Chamber of Commerce represents businesses of 24 islands with a population of 112,000. Businesses in the Cyclades are mostly dedicated to tourism, services, commerce and manufacturing. The Chamber has 7 offices throughout the Cyclades and its headquarters in Syros are in the historical building (Prassakaki Building) that was rebuilt with funding from the Operational Programme for the South Aegean Region.

The Chamber has an intermediary role as it represents the voice of the business community and it manages legal cases involving businesses. To facilitate internal organisation and communication with members it uses an advanced IT system. It also provides educational and training programmes for its members, including MBA studies. Furthermore, it carries out consultancy for businesses and it promotes its members through an online portal (www.e- kyklades.gr). The Chamber also offers support to business in application procedures for EU funds.

Members of the Chamber of Cyclades have taken part in many development projects funded by the ERDF up to a total value exceeding €600,000 between 2006 and 2016. Projects included: promotion of tourism in the Cyclades; technological upgrading of the tourist companies; renewable energy; export cluster for Cycladic agro-food and gastronomy products; establishing regional infrastructure for six islands; FIREMED on innovative financial

2 More information was requested and update with exact reference to the law will be given in due course. 3 More information was requested and update with exact reference to the law will be given in due course. 4

instruments to support the energy sector for SMEs in the Mediterranean area; seeking funding for SMEs etc.

The Chamber forms a partnership with the Regional Authority of the South Aegean, Managing Authority of the South Aegean and South Aegean Regional Development Fund. The Chamber also participates in the Monitoring Committee of the South Aegean Operational Programme and in public consultations on strategic planning of the South Aegean Region. Questions/comments from participants

How is the Chamber of Cyclades financed?  Members pay an annual fee but payment of this fee is no longer obligatory if a member does not request services from the Chamber.

Which elements are important in the partnership between the Chamber and Regional MA?  The Chamber of Cyclades is a small Chamber that needs technical assistance from MAs.

What challenges have you encountered in establishing partnerships?  There are difficulties in promoting partnerships among members because state funding is often negatively perceived (as a result of the financial crisis in Greece).

Do Chamber members lack interest in ERDF funds because they believe that this funding is not for them?  The lack of interest is connected to the money they need to invest and obligations they need to undertake.

How can these issues be communicated to MAs in order to improve the design of the calls for proposals?  The main problem is the level of bureaucracy and the high percentage of taxation (80%).

Do you communicate these issues to MAs?  These problems don’t come from poor connections with MAs. This is a structural problem.

Is there space for improvement?  Procedures for applying for funding should be made simpler. Currently funding applications use highly technical language that is not adapted to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). 4.1 Presentation by Panagiotis Theodorakis

For the Chamber of Cyclades it is difficult to be closely connected with members who are dispersed across 24 islands. Geographical barriers also pose difficulties for members to form partnerships. Another issue is that most of the Chamber’s members are linked to a specific business sector – mostly tourism. Therefore training courses provided to Chamber members are limited to the summer period. Questions/comments from the participants

How do you establish connections with the islands?  Connections through technical tools (internet) can be weak so meetings in person are preferred, although sometimes certain project promoters do not have proper facilities for hosting a meeting.

5. Interactive exercise and presentation on the Partnership Communication: Leda Stott

Leda Stott facilitated an interactive exercise among participants which served as an introduction to a short session on partnership communication. She based her presentation on

the ideas of Richard Sennett which are presented in the book ‘Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation’. At the beginning of the presentation a video was shown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dLw9zUK2RU in which Richard Sennett explains the characteristics of communication based on genuine co-operation. He believes that cooperation entails communication skills that seek to understand (rather than change) different points of view and that, to do this, active listening and empathy are important skills to develop.

6. Local Action Plans for Employment (TOPSA/TOPEKO): Implementation exercise: Mannuel Papamakarios

Presentation: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1177

Presentation: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1178

Mannuel presented the work of the NGO KEA which supports social and economic integration of vulnerable groups through various vocational training and counselling activities, and other services (psychological counselling, support for people with disabilities, cultural activities, day care centre, Hostel House – housing for people experiencing social exclusion and poverty, etc.). The organisation was founded by the Holy Metropolis of the Cyclades Islands.

One of KEA’s activities is support for the development of local action plans for employment. KEA has supported local action plans targeted at two social groups: TOPSA (for unemployed youth) and TOPEKO (for unemployed and socially vulnerable people). Besides psychological and vocational counselling to beneficiaries, these projects also offer local labour market analyses and support to start-ups.

The project activities of local action plans are implemented through partnerships with local authorities, NGOs and vocational training centres (Development Cooperation of Local Authorities of Cyclades, Polydynamo Centre of Social Intervention of Cyclades, KEK Epikentron Syros) in five Cycladic islands (Santorini, Syros, Naxos, Andros and Ios).

The main challenges KEA faced when implementing local action plans were the selection of islands to participate in project implementation and the lack of appropriate partners. To address these issues KEA used existing partnerships in the area.

What they have learned from the projects is that time is needed for building partnerships and that quality partnerships are based on transparency, respect, trust, good communication and an understanding of the value of working with different partners. Questions/comments from participants

How many people participated in the projects and what are the results?  Around 100 people participated and 4 or 5 businesses were established as a result, while 13 or 14 people found a job in the tourism sector.

Comment: For quality partnership it is important that support is given to people and not only to enterprises.

Might it be true that partnership has a stronger effect when implemented among a small number of partners?  This depends on different contexts.

What is the quality of your connection with public service providers?  It is good.

Why did employers decide to hire people from vulnerable social groups?  We organised networking and awareness-raising events for employers.

Is there any continuation or follow-up of the projects?  We are in the process of designing new projects.

7. Ongoing work on the ECCP Review

Presentation: https://ec.europa.eu/esf/transnationality/filedepot_download/1111/1180

The session on the review of the ECCP aimed to provide an overview of the work done and to assist future planning. Participants were given a document that presented the past workload and results in the first period of the work on the ECCP. They were then asked to discuss in two working groups the future working plans for the ECCP review – one group on policy-related topics, the second on the engagement of stakeholders and collection of partnership practices. Report back from the group looking at policy-related work planning

 A questionnaire will be sent to MAs that will include simple and straightforward questions: How do you apply the partnership principle? What has worked for you? Any recommendations you can give?  The European Commission’s country desk officers will be also asked for input  Recommendations need to be sent to the European Commission around January/February 2018  A web-conference will be set for the Partnership TN’s policy working group to discuss the formulation of the questionnaire  The Community-led local development (CLLD) method could be strengthened in the next programming period, and used to improve partnership. The general impression was that despite existing provisions, MS find it difficult to implement CLLD. Report back from the group looking at the engagement of stakeholders

 There is a need to address the use of technical assistance for engagement in the ESF thematic networks  Stakeholders within the Partnership TN (Poland and UK) will write up a briefing on this topic by mid-October. in the next two weeks  MAs in this group will share how they use technical assistance with Partnership TN members  The end result of both contributions (stakeholders and MAs) could be added to the ECCP recommendations  The partnership practices received to date will be validated through a peer review process which shares information on why a certain practice is relevant or not, and whether it should be shared publically. Leda will send 2-3 partnership practices to each member of the group for this purpose with guidance questions on how to approach the review.

Day 2: 27th September 2017 8. Reflection and exchange

The second day of the meeting was dedicated to sharing impressions and thoughts in relation to the topics discussed on the first day. The participants were asked to reflect on what had most captured their attention regarding the Greek Regional OP and if/how this compared to their working contexts.

Most of the answers touched upon the challenges in building partnerships between the Cyclades islands and the use of new communication technologies to breach physical barriers and distance. In connection with the issue of distance it was also mentioned that local development agencies in the Cyclades have less capacity to submit project proposals to the regional MAs in comparison to agencies based on the Greek mainland.

Participants were then asked to share experiences on how successful the use of digital communication is in their work. Most of the participants agreed that while new communication technologies are a useful tool in situations where face-to-face meetings are not possible, constructive discussions are still mostly the result of interpersonal interactions between actors. Some participants noted that communication is not always effective as it does not fully reach target groups. It was concluded that it would be useful to carry out an evaluation of the different communication practices used in partnerships to reach target groups.

Another area of discussion was the combined use of different funds. As the Regional OP in Greece draws from ERDF, ESF, Cohesion Fund and EARDF, the representatives of the Greek ESF MA were asked how difficult it is for the partners to manage and administer multi- funded approaches programmes. The representatives of the Greek MA said that it is difficult to coordinate between different funding regulations and the administrative costs are high. Bigger municipalities in Greece have technical assistance available to cope with the challenges of multi-funding while smaller municipalities need to ask for support from larger municipalities.

For participants it was interesting to hear that social partners and stakeholders are highly involved in the work of MAs related to the Operational Programmes. Partnership in the ESF in Greece is firmly rooted in the representation of different social groups. However, the decision-making process is centralised and does not always take all the different voices into account.

It was observed within the network that the extent to which social partners and stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process of the ESF is not sufficiently addressed and that this issue needs to be captured in the review of the ECCP.

Leda concluded the meeting by summarising some of the key partnership challenges mentioned:

 Partnerships are too often composed of the ‘usual suspects’ and the search for new, unusual and non-traditional partners that could assist more innovative approaches may thus be missed.  It is important to recognise that time constraints limit the search for non-traditional partners.  We need to improve reporting on the evidence base for good partnership practices, especially from the point of view of target groups. One idea is to use the Partnership TN for small peer reviews that focus on partnerships at the local level. Members of the Partnership TN could also share ideas about methodologies of how to better involve local level stakeholders in partnership initiatives.