Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of the Baltic Division of UNGEGN

The meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, at United Nations Headquarters, 6^th May 2011, during the 26^th Session of the UNGEGN.

Participants. Nine experts from three member countries of the Baltic Division participated: Ms Aistė Pangonytė and Ms Jūratė Palionytė (Lithuania), Ms Vita Strautniece (Latvia), Ms Aule Kikas, Ms Malle Hunt and Mr Peeter Päll (Estonia), Mr Sergey Shestakov, Ms Marina Morozova and Mr Vladimir Boginskiy.

Observers. Representatives of the East Central and South-East Europe Division – Ms Nataliia Sofia-Pinchuk and Ms Iryna Rudenko (Ukraine) participated as observers.

The meeting was chaired by Ms Aule Kikas. Secretary of the meeting – Ms Vita Strautniece.

The Agenda of the meeting included:

1. Organizational matters due the further activities of the Baltic Division.
2. News from the member states.

The 1^st item of the Agenda was devoted to some basic preparations for the 27^th Session of the UNGEGN what will be held in 6 and 17 August 2012 in New York, and organization of the 15^th meeting of the Baltic Division.

The 2^nd item of the Agenda – news from member states – turned to a lively discussion between the participants. The representatives of all three Baltic countries dealt with information regarding national standardization news in their countries:

Russian Federation reported about the new amendments of the Law on Geographical Names. The problem to be solved – procedure of change of official name if only one letter needs to be substituted or expunged.

Latvia presented news regarding Latvian geographical names official resources on the Web (published in the UNGEGN Information Bulletin number 40 (April 2011)), Draft Regulations of Cabinet of Ministers on Geographical Names Information and state mapping projects.

Estonia informed the participants about Estonian cadastre unit names revision process and scanning of Estonian Language Institute card files.

Lithuania dealt with problems and solutions regarding village names in territories settled compactly by Polish minority and street and other feature naming in summer villages.

The following decisions were made:

• A. The 15^th Meeting of the Baltic Division should be scheduled to the period between the current (26^th) and the next (27^th) UNGEGN Session – in the second part of 2011 or in the first part of 2012.
• B. Accordingly with the principle of rotation Latvia should organize the next Meeting of the Baltic Division of the UNGEGN. If Latvia has no possibilities to undertake this task, Estonia is ready to take the place of Latvia.

Aule Kikas
Chair of the meeting

Vita Strautniece
Secretary of the meeting