Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Presentation by Vladimir Prebilič (Slovenia, SOC) member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, of the Council of Europe as well as a member of Current Affairs Committee

I was elected as a mayor of Kočevje Municipality in 2010 by popular vote and which is known as a biggest municipality in Slovenia acre wise and neighboring municipality to Republic of Croatia. Border River Kolpa divides our countries but as I the case study will present we, on both sides of the borders, try to establish closer cooperation and therefore we consider the Kolpa River as an opportunity for friendship instead as a natural division.

Such case are the traditional Sports Games for primary school children living on either bank of the Kolpa River present one of a few examples of a long established friendship between the two nations and build new ties among the youth. The Sports Games unite primary school children coming from the municipalities of Delnice, Ribnice and Kočevje who get a chance to get to know each other, are actively involved, and establish new friendship ties.  This was the main goal that our ancestors set back in 1963. The first initiative for the cooperation between the municipality of Kočevje and the municipality of Delnice was born in 1961 in Delnice. It all started with the organization of annual sports competition days which they called the »Pioneer Sports Games”.

In 1962, the municipalities of Delnice and Kočevje together prepared competition guidelines and rules for the Sports Games Conference and are still followed today. In the same year, the municipality of Ribnica expressed an interest to be actively involved in the games as well. The first games were held in Kočevje on 9 June 1963 where teams from Kočevje and Delnice took part. Since 1963, the games have been following the same programme: Athletics – 60 m run the long jump, the high jump, the shot put, handball, football, volleyball, basketball, table tennis, chess and shooting.

The first transitional cup for the »Pioneer Sports Games« was donated by The Slovenian Association for Physical Activity. Since then the games have been taking place every year in Delnice and Kočevje each town holding the event one year. Under the name of the “Pioneer Sports Games” sports competitions took place from 1963 until 1990.

In the early 1990s and during the outbreak of the war in the area of the former Yugoslavia the competitions stopped. On my initiative the Sports Games were reinstated. This time under the name of »Sports Day Meetings of Primary School Children from Delnice, Ribnica and Kočevje ». Bringing the Sports Games into light again, the international sports connections among youth and municipalities on the both riverbanks of the Kolpa River were re-established and revived. Just last year over 400 children and their teachers came together and were actively involved in the Sports Games.

In Kočevje, we are extremely excited and fully engaged in the preparation of the 31^st Sports Games, which will be in Kočevje on 1 June 2018.

Dear all,

as you can see the Sports Games for Primary School Children from Delnice (CRO), Ribnica (SLO) and Kočevje (SLO) represent the platform so closer mutual cooperation that is represented on three levels:

-          on municipal level we exchange good practices on good governance, projects management, enhancing democracies and rule of law but above all promotion of human rights through managing multiculturalism and international cooperation

-          on level of public institutions they collaborate in the field of organizing other events of between national cooperation image

-          on level of youth children are able to meet their counterparts and with that fact they not only see but also take part in creating true and tight friendship between the nations.

Therefore I may conclude that this case study isn’t just another case of cross border cooperation but is a very good starting point for further development in the area of building true and long lasting friendship between the Slovenia and Croatia regardless of some open and quite tense I may add over estimated differences on a state level.