Report on the third Art of Cooperation conference
Knowledge sharing + Legal accessibility + Policy-making | 17 December 2025
Report on the third Art of Cooperation conference
Knowledge sharing + Legal accessibility + Policy-making | 17 December 2025
The third edition of the Art of Cooperation Conference took place in Budapest on 2-3 December 2025. The event organised by the Széchenyi Programme Office (SZPO) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary brought together more than 150 participants – representing 15 Member States, and national authorities of 18 Interreg Programmes – for an intensive professional exchange. The ArtCo2025 Conference focused on “Shaping Interreg Post 2027”.
The event was opened by Mr Péter Kiss-Parciu, Deputy State Secretary for Regional and Cross-Border Economic Development (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade), highlighting that Art of Cooperation (ArtCo) is more than a conference, it is a platform for genuine professional dialogue and exchange of experiences. He stressed that Interreg programmes are one of the EU’s most valuable tools in supporting regional cohesion and play a key role in improving the quality of life in border areas. Mr Áron Szakács, Managing Director at the Széchenyi Programme Office expressed his concern on the planned reform of the Interreg programmes for the 2028-2034 programming period. He highlighted that it seems disadvantageous that the European Commission is not planning a separate Interreg regulation for the period 2028—–-2034, and criticized the planned resource allocation methodology, which would adversely affect the Central and Eastern European region.
The first plenary presentation was held by Ms Simona Pohlova, Acting Head of Unit, European Commission, DG REGIO D.2., who introduced some details on the regulatory proposals for the EU Multiannual Financial Framework beyond 2027. She introduced the main points of the new regulatory package with a special focus on the Interreg programmes. She pointed out some of the aspects to be reformed and also those fields which are planned to remain unchanged compared to the previous programming periods. The first parallel workshop was also dedicated to the topic, which brought vibrant and insightful discussions of the panelists representing the European Commission (Ms Simona Pohlova), the Danube Region Programme (Ms Imre Csalagovits), The Interreg Europe Programme (Mr Alexis Françcois) and the Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine NEXT Programme (Mr Áron Szakács). The discussion was focused on the so-called performance-based approach and its mainly negative consequences to the Interreg programmes both in strategic and operational terms.
The second keynote speaker of the day, Mr Ricardo Ferreira, Planning and Programming Officer at Border Focal Point (DG REGIO) introduced the recently adopted Bridge for EU Regulation. In line with his presentation, the second parallel workshop focused on the role of Interreg in eliminating cross-border legal and administrative obstacles. The participants explored aspects linked to the practical implementation on the Bridge for EU and the possible methods on how the Regulation and Interreg Programmes can build upon each -other’s achievement. CESCI, and its #ACCESS project were represented by Mr Gyula Ocskay, Secretary General, as panelist of the workshop.
The second day of the conference started with the plenary presentation of Mr Moray Gilland, Head of Unit of the European Commission, REGIO D.1. He highlighted that in line with the title of the conference, cooperation is rather an art, not a science. He talked about the EU accession processes, pointing out the importance of capacity-building, knowledge sharing and experience-exchange. He added that Interreg has a great role in these by building institutional relationships between accession countries and EU member states through the shared management of programmes. The related workshop focused on how capacity-building initiatives support accession countries in preparing for future Cohesion Funds. Multiple perspectives from the European Commission, the primary initiator (Mr Jozef Michálek, DG REGIO), the knowledge-sharing institutions (Ms Iveta Puzo, TESIM) and the beneficiary authorities (Mr Viktor Tunić, Hungary-Serbia IPA Programme and Mr Vladimir Zhoglev, National Authority, North Macedonia) provided insight into current practices and related challenges.
The next plenary speaker, Mr Nicolas Garnier on behalf of the INTERACT talked about the capitalisation of Interreg project results, as one of the main tools for the efficient use of the funds. In his presentation, he introduced the main concept of capitalisation in a general term, then during a workshop the already existing best practices were explored by the representatives of the Central Europe Programme (Mr Christophe Ebermann), the Italy-Slovenia Programme (Ms Laura Comelli) and the Hungary-Serbia IPA Programme (Mr Dejan Vujinović). The first two speakers introduced their recent capitalisation calls for proposals and the long-term processes and mechanisms behind them over programming periods. Mr Dejan Vujinović talked about the challenges of the IPA context, highlighting the programme success in terms of policy uptake of the project results.
By the third year of the event series, the ArtCo conference has become a defining professional platform for European territorial cooperation (Interreg), creating dialogue and knowledge sharing between cross-border cooperation programs, decision-makers and the professional community.
Honlapunk a Külgazdasági és Külügyminisztérium támogatásával készült.
