EUREGIO EGRENSIS Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bayern e.V.

The EUREGIO EGRENSIS

The EUREGIO EGRENSIS on the German-Czech border was founded in the year 1993. It involves three legally independent working communities: EUREGIO EGRENSIS Working Community of Bavaria, EUREGIO EGRENSIS Working Community of Saxonia / Thuringia and EUREGIO EGRENSIS Working Community of Bohemia. The German working communities are run as registered non-profit associations in accordance with the German private law. The Bohemian working community is an association of local authorities, i.e. towns and municipalities run in accordance with the Czech law.

On the Bavarian side the EUREGIO EGRENSIS involves: the districts Amberg-Sulzbach, Bayreuth, Hof, Kronach, Kulmbach, Neustadt a.d. Waldnaab, Schwandorf, Tirschenreuth, Wunsiedel i.F. as well as the towns Amberg, Bayreuth, Hof and Weiden. On the Saxonian-Thuringian side the EUREGIO EGRENSIS involves: the district Vogtlandkreis, the town of Plauen and the district Erzgebirgskreis as successor of the former district Aue-Schwarzenberg in Saxonia as well as the districts Greiz and Saale Orla from Thuringia. On the Bohemian side the EUREGIO EGRENSIS covers: the region Karlovy Vary (Karlovarský kraj) with former districts Sokolov, Cheb and Karlovy Vary as well as the former district Tachov (Plzeňský kraj).

All three working communities have an own Presidium taking decisions related to each association. Moreover, each working community has its own head office (Marktredwitz, Plauen, Karlovy Vary) with an executive director and further employees.
The guidelines for the activities concerning the whole Euregio are laid down by the Joint Presidium. Each working community is represented by three Presidium members in this body that gets support from all three head offices. A representative of one of the three working communities is elected for a period of two years as Joint President of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS.

The EUREGIO EGRENSIS is member of Association of European Border Regions (

AEBR) since 1995.

Examples of main activities of EUREGIO EGRENSIS

- Language campaign
The EUREGIO EGRENSIS has started in November 2005 a language campaign with the aim to promote a better awareness for the importance of language knowledge for the development of the region. The reservation towards the language of the neighbouring country shrinks enormously the development possibilities that cross-border cooperation offers for citizens from the EUREGIO EGRENSIS. Accordingly, the Czech / German language campaign has the aim to improve the intercultural skills within the EUREGIO EGRENSIS.
It’s not necessary to know perfectly the language of the neighbouring country in order to ensure a sufficient understanding between the Germans and the Czechs. Even basic knowledge of the other language makes the cross-border cooperation much easier.
The language campaign includes three priorities:

Increased awareness, convincing, increased demand;

Presentation, documentation and dissemination of good practices, improved exchange of experiences;

More language courses and technical support.

Sub-projects of the language campaign - for example the language animation at schools and the exchange of experiences between course instructors - are co-funded by the European Union and the German-Czech Future Fund.

In 2007 the Euregio received for the “Czech Language Campaign” the European Language Label. The coveted language label awards each year outstanding projects that contribute in a particularly innovative and exemplary way to improved learning and teaching of foreign languages in Europe.

Newer activities are the development of a czech-german dictionary for fire brigade and courses of czech language for german firemen in the german-czech border region.

- Annual Press Conference of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS
Every year the three working communities organise a joint press conference. The aim is to inform interested public, politicians and representatives of administration as well as stakeholders in cross-border cooperation about recent developments, activities and projects in the region.

- Youth camp
The youth camp is one of the first projects initialised shortly after the foundation of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS. Youngsters between 12 and 15 years old from the Bavarian, Saxonian-Thuringian and Bohemian side of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS spend one week together during the summer holidays. Since 1992 the youth camp has taken place in rotation in one of the three working communities of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS.

- EUREGIO-EGRENSIS-Award
Each year the EUREGIO EGRENSIS awards are bestowed to personalities and institutions for their particular achievements in cross-border German-Czech cooperation within the EUREGIO EGRENSIS. The awards are bestowed to personalities and institutions that either actively support the ideas of the EUREGIO EGRENSIS or deliver highly interesting results in their scientific research work as regards the cross-border cooperation in the EUREGIO EGRENSIS.