The delegation from the Belgian municipality of Merelbeke-Melle led by Mayor Egbert Lachaert, arrived in Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region, on Sunday to formally sign off a twinning agreement between the two towns.
That’s according to an Ukrinform correspondent.
“Kalush asked us to enter into a city partnership, and we firmly embraced this proposal. This collaboration fits within our historical commitment to promoting peace and international solidarity,” Mayor Egbert Lachaert told Ukrinform.
“I’ve been Member of Parliament for 12 years for the Liberal Democrat Party in Belgium, and I was president of the party for three years, and in that time, I was in contact with an international liberal network of colleagues, where the Ukrainians were present. When I became mayor of my municipality last year, I founded an initiative to support Ukraine in the form of a twinning agreement between my municipality of 40,000 inhabitants and what turned out to be a comparable candidate, the town of Kalush in Ukraine,” the mayor went on to say.
The delegation, which also includes a Senator from the city council and representative of the administration, will list up the areas where the two municipalities can work together.
“One of the things the twinning agreement will help us achieve is to spread awareness of what is happening here that people in Belgium should understand. That actually Ukrainians are fighting for our values in the west. I want our youngest population to be more sensible about the interests that are at stake here, I want to have connections between schools, youth organizations, and cultural organizations,” Lachaert said.
Industrial cooperation is another thing Merelbeke-Melle would like to develop as it has major energy, tech, agricultural, research companies located in the municipality, according to the mayor, who said this could include equipment, know-how sharing in energy efficiency and sustainable development, as well as personnel exchange.
“I am a liberal, and I believe in the values of democracy, and I know very well what is at stake. If you have an autocratic regime that is actually attacking a modern democracy. And it’s not only a threat for the Ukrainian people, but for Eastern Europe and the entire Europe, actually,” the mayor believes. “This is about freedom. It’s about taking your faith in your own hands, freedom of expression to be who you want to be, and another regime that wants to put the border somewhere else. So for me, it’s more. A principal thing,” Egbert Lachaert stressed.
“What Russia wants is to install a puppet regime in Ukraine but that’s not what the Ukrainian people want, and I totally understand that,” the official concluded.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Kingdom of Belgium is among the 20 largest donors to Ukraine per capita, and since the beginning of Russian aggression has provided Ukraine with military, humanitarian, and reconstruction assistance worth over EUR 2.2 billion.
Belgium pays significant attention to investments in the development of people, in the knowledge system, social security and employment. Through the programs of the Enabel agency, Belgium helps, in close cooperation with the Ukrainian government, in providing vocational training and finding jobs, the young people and former military.
In the field of reconstruction of social facilities, such as schools or hospitals, Belgium helps not only to rebuild what was destroyed by the war, but also to build new and modern social institutions.
On April 8, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot, and Defense Minister Theo Francken paid a visit to Ukraine.
Source: Kalush signs twinning agreement with Belgium’s Merelbeke-Melle
