On 8 May, more than 20 people from Aachen participated the online citizens’ summit organized under the project “euPrevent COVID-19”.
The summit was opened by euPrevent director, Brigitte van der Zanden, with the introduction of the project and the importance of citizens’ feedback on their experience during the corona time. Citizens from Aachen shared their personal life experience with experts who were present at the summit. These experts mainly consisted of those from StadtRegion Aachen and EPECS (European Patients Empowerment for Customised Solutions).
The experience of citizens from Aachen is representative for the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (the EMR) citizens. It is acknowledged that the interests of citizens from the border region are far too little taken into account in the decision-making at the national level. The impact of different national rules in a border region is enormous. Citizens living in the border area are hit extra hard by these measures which has an extra impact on their lives. More findings and insight from the citizens’ summit will be incorporated in a report which will be published by the end of the year.
This citizens’ summit is the first one of the 8 citizens’ events to be organized within the framework of the project “euPrevent COVID-19”, an Interreg VA EMR funded project which aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the EMR. The upcoming citizens’ summits in June and September will focus on the citizens from Maastricht, Liège, Hasselt, Düren, Heinsberg and Eupen. For those who are interested in participating, here is the link to register to these events: https://euprevent.eu/summits-covid/.