10. 3. 2017 | Danube, PR
Today, on 12th March 12th Steering Group (SG) Meeting of the Priority Area 10 – Institutional Capacity and Cooperation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), hosted by the City of Vienna took place at the representation of Baden- Wurttemberg in Berlin, held on the side-lines of the Donausalon.
PA10 Steering Group members had the opportunity to participate at the Donausalon, the opening of congress part of the ITB Berlin 2017 on Thursday Evening. Slovenia as the “Convention and Culture Partner ITB Berlin 2017” coloured the event in green. Slovenian State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology Ms Eva Štravs Podlogar took the Danube river basin as an example and expressed readiness for further cooperation. The highlight of the evening was the National Geographic World Legacy Award won by the Slovenian Tourist Board in destination leadership category.
The PA10 SG meeting on Friday addressed several important items, from state of play in participating countries, Annual Forum, update on macroregional cooperation and Commission’s report, DSP closure, Seed Money Facility call, DSPF call to PA10 workplan in 2017. Two successful projects from the 1st DTP call were also presented – AgriGoForCities and Attracitve Danube project. The next PA 10 SG meeting will be held in November at Jable Castle and hosted by CEP.
1. 1. 2017 | Danube
In January 2017 Centre for European perspective joined active implementation of the Danube Strategy as one of the coordinators of priority area 10 (PA10) – Institutional capacity and cooperation (the other coordinator is City of Vienna from Austria). Its main objective is enhancing the capacity of various institutions working in the Danube region, from its local, to regional, national and macro regional level on numerous topics.
The Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) is part of the Interreg family that acts as policy driver towards the positive change. It is a financing tool that is enabling actors in the region to implement transnational projects that promote cooperation and mutual learning. In its first call the DTP decided to financially support 53 projects across the region, dealing with diverse aspects of its main objectives:
– innovative and socially responsible Danube region
– environment and culture responsible Danube region
– better connected and energy sustainable Danube region
– well governed Danube region.
In this first call four projects that fall under the PA 10 topic were selected and they have recently presented their plans to the public. They are presented briefly below.
ATTRACTIVE DANUBE
Improving Capacities for Enhancing Territorial Attractiveness of the Danube Region
The main objective of Attractive Danube is to strengthen multilevel and transnational governance and institutional capacities of policy planners involved in territorial development of the Danube Region, which will result in more harmonized governance system of the area.
Attractive Danube is led by Geodetic Institute of Slovenia which is coordinating 11 partners and 7 associated partners from 13 EU and non EU countries.
More about the project can be found at http://www.interreg-danube.eu/attractive-danube
DRIM
Danube Region Information Platform for Economic Integration of Migrants
With the goal of achieving cohesion and economic development in the Danube region, DRIM’s objective is to enhance the capacity of public institutions for promoting migrants’ economic integration, understood as fair access to employment, work and skills enhancement. DRIM brings together 10 partners and 8 associated partners form 9 countries and is coordinated by Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
More about the project can be found at http://www.interreg-danube.eu/drim
AgriGo4Cities
Urban agriculture for changing cities: governance models for better institutional capacities and social inclusion
AgriGo4Cities is coordinated by Slovenian Anton Melik Geographical Institute of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The AgriGo4Cities project wants to employ Participatory Urban and Peri-urban agriculture as a powerful and emerging method to improve public institutional capacities in order to tackle socio-economic exclusion of vulnerable/marginalized groups and to stimulate sustainable urban development in the Danube region. It brings together 11 partners and 6 associated partners from 8 countries that have recognized that urban gardening can have wide positive effects on people living in cities.
More about the project can be found at http://www.interreg-danube.eu/agrigo4cities
RARE
Changing Discourses, Changing Practices: The Roma as Human Resource
RARE aims to enhance the capacities of and cooperation among actors having a stake in the labour market participation of the Roma in order to better exploit their economic potential. RARE will result in equipping partner institutions with new opportunities for synergies and innovation to effectively tackle labour market inclusion of the Roma in the Danube Region and monitor and assess efficiency of interventions.
Consortium of 13 partners and 8 associated partners from 9 countries is coordinated by Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.
More about the project can be found at http://www.interreg-danube.eu/rare
Coordinators of the PA10 will closely follow the implementation of the projects and suggest project partners identified potential synergies in its methodology, pilot testing as well as policy recommendations. Coordinators will strive to implement project results into their work and transfer findings along with recommendations to the national, Danube and European policy level.
2. 10. 2016 | Danube, PR
The Danube Strategic Project Fund is a new facility aiming at supporting the implementation of transnational strategic projects aligned with the objective of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), with a specific added value at the interfaces between cohesion and enlargement/neighbourhood policy.
It is co-financed with funds provided to the European Commission by the European Parliament and the City of Vienna and will be managed by PA 10 of the EUSDR (City of Vienna) in close cooperation with EuroVienna, affiliated entity to the City of Vienna.
Background
The Danube Strategic Project Fund builds upon the experience gained during the implementation of the pilot initiatives START – Danube Region Project Fund and the technical assistance facility TAF – DRP, carried out by the City of Vienna in its capacity as Priority Area 10 “Institutional Capacity and Cooperation” of the EUSDR. Moreover, it refers as appropriate to the results, conclusions and recommendations of the “Socio-economic assessment of the Danube Region”, which was implemented by Priority Area 8 “Competitiveness” and finalised in November 2015.
General and specific objectives of the initiative
The Danube Strategic Project Fund (DSPF) focuses primarily on innovative pre-mature projects which could not be funded so far and respond to the actual needs in the Danube Regions functional area. Moreover, it will provide support for projects and initiatives which do not fit into a programme or funding scheme (or which need a combination of several funding instruments).
The DSPF pays particular attention to projects that:
– Have a strategic impact, especially in view of Enlargement and Neighbourhood policies
– Have connections and/or spill-over effects in the territory covered by the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
– Include neighboring countries
– Include cross-cutting and/or horizontal measures covering several Priority Areas of the Strategy
– Follow a multi-level governance approach
– Support the establishment of economic and social cooperation
– Foster integration and reconciliation of Danube countries, with a particular focus on the training of young people
A Description of the Initiative can be downloaded: here
A list of the Advisory Board Members can be downloaded: here
2. 8. 2016 | Danube
At the end of the year 2010 European Commission adopted the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) that aims to deepen the cooperation of 14 countries in the Danube region. These are Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Moldova and Ukraine. Countries are very diverse – EU members, candidate countries, potential candidates as well as countries from the European Neighbourhood Policy. Despite the different statuses, the listed countries share common geographical area, history and part of the cultural heritage and therefore connection seems especially reasonable in the field of environment protection, ensuring prosperity and strengthening of the Danube region.
Strategy is covering 11 priority areas and each priority is coordinated by two partner countries (PA means priority area):
PA 1A Mobility – Waterway
PA 1B Mobility – Rail-Road-Air
PA 2 Energy
PA 3 Culture & Tourism
PA 4 Water Quality
PA 5 Environmental Risks
PA 6 Biodiversity, landscapes, quality of air and soils
PA 7 Knowledge Society
PA 8 Competitiveness
PA 9 People & Skills
PA 10 Institutional capacity and cooperation
PA 11 Security
Slovenia is coordinating two priority areas, PA 1B that aims to improve mobility and intermodality – rail, road and air as well as PA 10 – Institutional Capacity and Cooperation that plans to step up institutional capacity and cooperation in the field of civil society, local/regional administration, urban areas and youth. CEP is coordinating PA 10 with Austria.
In first years of the implementation of the Strategy Slovenia was in PA 10 represented by Centre for Excellence in Finance, while from 1.1.2017 coordination will be delegated to Centre for European Perspective. On the Austrian side, City of Vienna is responsible for the management of PA 10 and has been part of the Danube Strategy from its beginning. Partners have for the upcoming three years together developed projects that will be implemented to contribute to better cooperation in the region, promotion of the Strategy and European Union as a whole. Our work will be focused on facilitation of better participation of young, raising awareness on importance of coordination in the Danube region, search for solutions for better collaboration on local and regional levels as well as capacity building of actors and structures of the civil society.
Centre for European Perspective is proud to be taking over the role of a coordination and has already started intensively preparing with participation at the 5th Annual Forum of the Danube Strategy in Bratislava (http://www.danube-forum-bratislava.eu) and at 11th meeting of the PA 10 in Bucharest on November 15th.
More information about the Strategy for Danube region can be obtained at http://danube-region.eu, while priorities and activities of the PA 10 are presented at http://www.danube-capacitycooperation.eu/.
CEP prevzema aktivno vlogo v Podonavski makroregiji
Evropska komisija je konec leta 2010 sprejela Strategijo za Podonavje, katere namen je poglobljeno sodelovanje 14ih držav v Podonavju. To so Nemčija, Avstrija, Češka, Slovaška, Madžarska, Slovenija, Romunija, Bolgarija, Hrvaška, Srbija, BiH, Črna gora, Moldavija in Ukrajina. Partnerske države so zelo raznolike – članice EU, članice kandidatke, potencialne kandidatke in države, s katerimi ima EU odnose v okviru Evropske sosedske politike. A kljub temu države delijo geografsko področje, zgodovino in tudi del kulturne dediščine, zato se zdi povezovanje smiselno še posebej na področju varovanja okolja, zagotavljanja blaginje in krepitve Podonavja.
Strategija vsebinsko pokriva 11 prioritet, vsako prioriteto pa skupaj koordinirata dve partnerski državi (PA je kratica za ‘priority area’, prednostno področje):
PA 1A Plovne poti
PA 1B Mobilnost – železnica-cesta-zrak
PA 2 Energija
PA 3 Kultura in turizem
PA 4 Kakovost vode
PA 5 Okoljska tveganja
PA 6 Biotska raznovrstnost, krajine, kakovost zraka in prsti
PA 7 Družba znanja
PA 8 Konkurenčnost
PA 9 Ljudje in veščine
PA 10 Institucionalna zmogljivost in sodelovanje
PA 11 Varnost
Slovenija tako koordinira dve področji, prednostno področje PA1B, ki se ukvarja z izboljšanjem prometne povezanosti regije in področjem PA 10 – Institucionalna zmogljivost in sodelovanje, katerega glavni namen je izboljšanje administrativnih kapacitet države in sodelovanja na področjih civilne družbe, lokalne/regionalne uprave, urbanih področij in mladih. Področje PA10 CEP koordinira skupaj z Avstrijo.
V prvih letih izvajanja strategije je Slovenijo v PA10 zastopal Center za odličnost v financah (CEF), s 1.1.2017 pa koordinacijo prevzema Center za evropsko prihodnost. Na Avstrijski strani je za vodstvo PA10 določeno mesto Dunaj, ki je del podonavske strategije že od samega začetka. Partnerja sta za prihodnja tri leta skupaj oblikovala projekte, ki jih bosta izvajala in s tem prispevala k boljšemu sodelovanju v regiji, promociji strategije in Evropske Unije kot celote. Delo bo osredotočeno na omogočanje boljše participacije mladih, ozaveščanju pomembnosti sodelovanja v Podonavski regiji, iskanju rešitev za boljše sodelovanje na lokalnem in regionalnem nivoju ter povezovanju in opolnomočenju akterjev in struktur civilne družbe.
Center za evropsko prihodnost s ponosom prevzema vlogo koordinatorja in se je na delo dobro pripravil, tudi z udeležbo na 5. letnem srečanju Podonavske regije, ki je potekalo v prvih dneh novembra v Bratislavi (http://www.danube-forum-bratislava.eu/) in 11. srečanja PA10 področja v Bukarešti, 15. novembra 2016.
Več o Podonavski strategiji je dostopnega na http://danube-region.eu/, prioritete in aktivnosti področja PA10 pa so predstavljene na http://www.danube-capacitycooperation.eu/.
