EGTC-Workshop 2013/3 (Veľký Meder)

CESCI organized the next EGTC workshop in Veľký Meder for the EGTCs with Hungarian participation. Eight EGTCs were represented at the workshop held on 27th-28th August.

At the beginning of the event the participating EGTCs introduced themselves to the guests then Ocskay Gyula Secretary General of CESCI had a report on the steps made by the association for the sake of the professional and political approval of the cross-border integrated territorial investments (ITI).

Within the framework of the second agenda item the Pannon EGTC was introduced in detail by Mikes Éva deputy director. The development strategy of the grouping, founded in 2010 and registered in March 2012, was prepared in the recent past. In course of its working out not only the claims of the Hungarian and Slovenian but the joining Croatian members were taken into consideration. Recently the cooperation involves three Slovenian municipalities, 51 Hungarian local and 3 county governments, the University of Pécs and the Duna-Dráva National Park, but the currently observes Croatian members (municipalities and sub-regions) have already indicated their intention to be a member with full rights. This is allowed by the Croatian EGTC law approved on 18 July.

The last lecture of the first day was given by Nyikos Györgyi professional of the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the European Union in Brussels. As she said, she deals with the issues of the Strategy for Danube Region, the European Territorial Cooperation and the EGTC. The professional informed in detail the participants on the improvements of the 2014-2020 programming process on Union level and on their effect on the national Operative Programmes and the operation of the EGTCs. She also talked about the budgetary negotiations, the rules of the new territorial instruments (ITI, CLLD) and the changing ETC and EGTC regulations.

On the second day Csányi Edina and Kiss-Parciu Péter, colleagues of the Danube Contact Point of the European Investment Bank held a presentation on the institutions’ role in the classification of Danube region projects and in financing. As they said the experts of the bank examine the possibility of the establishment of a technical supporting framework which could contribute to the development of the greater cross-border projects. The bank can also take a hand in the financing, and delegate experts to the project management which would be a great help to the EGTCs.