International partnerships

History of partnerships

Rakoniewice commune started to establish international partnerships as early as the 1980s. At first, these were informal meetings of representatives of the local governments; then the local schools showed interest in these contacts.

The commune signed a partnership agreement with the Dutch town Diessen-Hilvarenbeek in 1986. However, developing an international partnership was quite difficult at that time for political reasons. It was only in the 1990s that contacts with twin towns and communes started to flourish. At first, these contacts were not sealed by any official partnership agreements. They were mainly based on meetings of the town authorities, school exchanges and artistic performances which enabled their participants to get to know the culture and national heritage of the other country.

In 1998, Rakoniewice district signed an agreement on mutual contacts and partnership with Flotwedel commune in Germany, based on the agreement on good neighborhood and friendly cooperation concluded between the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany on 17^th June 1991. The next partnership agreement was signed in 1999 with Støvring commune from Denmark. Signing both of these agreements was the result of the common initiative of the Danish, German and Polish communes called "International School Project 1998-2000". Within this project, pupils from the communes could make themselves acquainted with the culture, traditions and functioning of the educational systems in the partner towns. Most of the friendships made at that time still exist.

To open to the east of Europe, Rakoniewice commune also established contacts with Lithuania and Russia, which resulted in signing two partnership agreements with the Russian town Monino and the Lithuanian town Širvintos in 2003. Since then our partnership has still been developing. Every ear we hold different meetings, conferences, school exchanges. First of all, the agreements contributed to the development of contacts between the local communities and individual professional groups: firefighters, entrepreneurs, farmers, teachers, local administration workers, people with common interests (for example anglers), choirs and music bands and non-governmental organizations. The citizens of our partner towns are not only our partners in the sphere of social life or economy, but first of all they have become our friends who are always welcome and who we also love visiting. In 2003, we also started talks about establishing a partnership with Kharkiv district, which resulted in signing an agreement on cooperation in the areas of industry, commerce, science, technology and culture with the Ukrainian town Pisochin and Kharkiv district.

In 2006, a trilateral partnership agreement was signed between Rakoniewice commune, Shchelkovo district and Monino commune (which is part of Shchelkovo district).

The local government of Rakoniewice is still very active in continuing and widening these contacts as well as gaining new partners and pursuing new projects. At present we focus on widening the already established contacts so that our citizens can make themselves acquainted with the culture, traditions and customs of other nations and that we can propagate what is best in Poland and our region and what will certainly bear fruits in the form of many contacts with other countries, also in the sphere of economy.