EGTC-Workshop 2014/1 (Budapest)

The next EGTC workshop was held on 12th-13th of March 2014 in Budapest. Besides the EGTCs with Hungarian participants, the representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration, the Prime Minister’s Office and the organizations responsible for the planning of cross-border programmes also took part in the 2-day event.

At first Ocskay Gyula Secretary General of CESCI welcomed the participants and dr Kres Tímea representative of the Gate to Europe EGTC, rewarded by the EGTC Award 2014. Then the interactive discussion on the current situation of the EGTCs began with the moderation of Ivády Nóra colleague of the Ministry of PAJ and Ocskay Gyula.

Within the framework of the first agenda item the actual status of the forming EGTC-s with Hungarian participation was introduced, then they talked about the new EGTC Regulation being published in December: in the current phase of the process the Member States are preparing their nation rules, naturally, there will be certain amendments in Hungary too. Regarding the events of the recent past, there were reports on the third conference of the approval authority, as well as the seminar on the Third Protocol to the Madrid Outline Convention organized by the Council of Europe. The next seminar will be held in May in Hungary. Then the participants discussed the topic of the EGTC support for year 2014 with the coordination of the Ministry, then the actual European Union tenders were introduced.

Following this the operation of Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) was presented by Kiss-Parciu Péter (EIB Budapest Danube Contact Point). The instrument supports major projects or integrated developments by finance the fees of those experts who prepare the projects instead of offering direct financial support for the applicants.

In course of Wednesday afternoon the EGTCs reported on their current and future plans. The representative of the Novohrad-Nógrád, the RDV, the Ister-Granum, the Arrabona, the BTC, the Via Carpatia, the Sajó-Rima, the Pannnon, the Gate to Europe, the Abaúj in Abaúj, the Bodrogköz and the Pons Danubii EGTC also held a presentation.

On Thursday three lectures were given on the improvements of cross-border programming. On behalf of the CESCI Ocskay Gyula told about the Hungarian – Slovakian Programme, Matolcsy János colleague of KPMG introduced the Hungarian – Romanian Programme, while Lunk Tamás, in the name of VitalPro Ltd. reported on the Hungarian – Croatian and the Serbian – Hungarian Programme.

The workshop, financed by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, was ended by a joint lunch.