Rhineland-Palatinate - South Carolina partnership

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The Rhineland-Palatinate - South Carolina partnership is an official regional partnership between the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the US state of South Carolina . This was established in 1997.

history

Transatlantic conferences, which were initially only carried out at the specialist level, now tend to focus on the civil society and the educational sector. There are various university exchange programs and cooperation projects in the field of school and sport. The Atlantic Academy of Rhineland-Palatinate eV in Kaiserslautern regularly offers regional student workshops on the partner country. The online project "Transatlantic Partners", which is supported by the multimedia initiative of the state government rlpinform and organized as part of a student working group at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Campus Landau) and a partner editorial office at Francis Marion University in Florence (South Carolina) , documents the partnership and offers a wide range of information and exchange opportunities.

Beginnings

On March 10, 1993, Andrew J. Goodpaster , Allied Commander-in-Chief in Europe (SACEUR) from 1969 to 1971 , proposed to then Prime Minister Rudolf Scharping that a transatlantic dialogue be initiated at the level of the federal states and the United States . This idea originally came from Jack M. Seymour Jr. , the then director of the John Jay McCloy program "On the Future of the Atlantic Communities". The Atlantic Council addressed its request for another partner country for South Carolina to various German state chancelleries and received approval from the Rhineland-Palatinate state chancellery . The state government's motives for such a partnership were primarily of a state political nature: by intensifying transatlantic contacts, a. the continuation of the American military presence in the country must be ensured.

The heads of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Chancellery, Karl-Heinz Klär and Klaus Rüter , were involved in establishing the partnership . The Americans spoke and negotiated with Luther F. Carter, director of the "South Carolina Budget and Control Board" and today President of Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. According to the ideas of the Atlantic Council, the new transatlantic roundtable should be organized between three participants, namely South Carolina, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia , the "godfather" and partner country of Rhineland-Palatinate after reunification. Thuringia was soon eliminated from the group.

Stages of formalization

After intensive preparatory work at the working level, the first transatlantic conference took place in 1994 (held in two parts: first in March in Rhineland-Palatinate, then in October in South Carolina). The theme of the conferences was conversion , i. H. the problem of the future use of abandoned military facilities for both partners after the end of the Cold War . On September 8, 1995, an administrative agreement was reached between the two partners on cooperation in the fields of education, research and science, culture, health, sport and tourism. In March 1997, the head of the State Chancellery, Klaus Rüter, and his colleague Carter agreed on a personnel exchange between executives from both countries. Two employees per year and country should take part in a four-week exchange.

On May 1, 1997, Prime Minister Kurt Beck and Governor David Beasley signed a partnership agreement between the state of South Carolina and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Soon after, the two state parliaments, the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and the "General Assembly of South Carolina" agreed an official partnership.

With regard to the two agreements of 1995 and 1997, a joint agreement was signed in October 1998 between the "Commission on Higher Education", South Carolina, and the Ministry of Education, Science and Continuing Education, Rhineland-Palatinate area telecommunications . On December 13, 2003, Kurt Beck and Governor Mark Sanford signed a "Joint Declaration" on the future direction of the partnership between the two countries. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the partnership, a delegation headed by State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, Roger Lewentz, traveled to South Carolina in April 2007 to discuss the further development of the partnership. This was followed by a return visit in September 2007 by a 12-person delegation from South Carolina under the leadership of two US State Senators in Rhineland-Palatinate. Senator Hugh Leatherman, member of the Budget and Control Board, and the Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Karl Peter Bruch signed a new letter of intent on September 12, 2007 on the future direction of the partnership.

Transatlantic Conferences

The most intensive exchange between the two partner countries took place in the first few years in the Transatlantic Conferences, in which government representatives from both sides as well as representatives from business, science and education took part. Thuringia and Brandenburg were also involved in some conferences.

date Conference location Conference item
Conference
1a
1b
March 1994
Nov 1994
Rhineland-Palatinate
(Oberhambach, Birkenfeld district)
South Carolina
(Charleston)		 conversion
Conference
2a
2b
March 1995
Oct 1995		 Thuringia
(Erfurt)
South Carolina
(Seabrook Island)		 education
3rd conference June 1996 Rhineland-Palatinate
(Potzberg, Krs.Kusel)		 The role of countries and states in international relations

(see the documentation of the same name: Atlantic Texts Volume 4/1997)

4th conference Oct 1997 South Carolina
(Myrtle Beach)		 Telecommunications, energy and the environment
5th conference March 1998 Rhineland-Palatinate
(Bingen)		 Tourism, economic and technological cooperation
6th conference Oct 1999 South Carolina
(Fripp Island)		 Economic development, conversion, environmental protection.

With Brandenburg participating for the first time

7th conference Oct. 2000 Brandenburg (Potsdam) Tourism, sport, new media, joint internet presence,

Conversion, education

According to the Memorandum of Understanding of 2007, the Transatlantic Conferences should continue from autumn 2008, but the project was postponed for the time being due to difficulties caused by the economic and financial crisis.

Examples of cooperation

  • From 1999 exchange of trainees between the "Florence-Darlington Technical College" and Vocational School III, Mainz. In 2002 it became the EU / US team teaching and team learning project "A Distance Learning Consortium to Train Global Workers"
  • Exchange of student and internship exchanges in the areas of education and training between the University of South Carolina , Lander University , Clemson University on the one hand and Mainz University of Applied Sciences , the IHK for Rheinhessen and the Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz .
  • City partnerships between Hamm / Sieg and Newberry as well as Kaiserslautern and Columbia.
  • Promotion of contacts in the field of tourism and business.
  • Exchange at regional or historically oriented advanced training seminars on South Carolina for Rhineland-Palatinate teachers, student workshops under the direction of George W. Harding (Francis Marion University).

Transatlantic Partners online platform

The online platform Transatlantic has been offering information about South Carolina and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the regional partnership since 2008. The website was designed bilingual by a working group at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Landau campus) and a partner editorial team at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. The project is financially supported by the multimedia initiative of the state government.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ (Letter from the Prime Minister of March 19, 1993)

Web links