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/.