Towards a roadmap for future cross-border cooperation in Southeast Europe. International conference in Thessaloniki
| 16 April 2025
Towards a roadmap for future cross-border cooperation in Southeast Europe. International conference in Thessaloniki
| 16 April 2025
As a follow-up of the first conference organised in 2023 in Sofia (Bulgaria) on the topic, the Helicas, the Amphictyony and the Efxini Poli EGTCs organised an international conference in Thessaloniki on 3 and 4 April 2025. The event aimed to sketch the frames for a roadmap for future cross-border cooperation (CBC) in the Balkans region. The keynote speech was given by Secretary General Gyula Ocskay, CESCI.
Nearly 200 stakeholders from Southeast Europe convened in the capital of Macedonia region at the beginning of April to discuss how to develop cross-border cooperation in the Balkans. The audience was greeted by 16 notabilities representing the town, the region, the EP Office to Greece and different municipality networks, including the representatives of the three co-organiser EGTCs, namely Grigoris Konstantellos, Chairman of the Efxini Poli, Vassilis Xenos, Director of Amphictyony (online) and Simos Daniilidis, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Helicas.
In his keynote speech, the secretary general of CESCI summed up the troubles of the 20th century, pointing at the more than 4.5 million causalities caused by the wars for the Balkans countries and the 9.1 million emigrants leaving the Balkans countries since 1990. The total number of missing people is identical with today’s population of Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia – if the four countries would just have been wiped out from the map… He considered the EU the solution for preventing future conflicts and depopulation as the Union is not only the most successful peace project of the history but it facilitates diminishing the significance of the state borders generating so many problems for the Balkan region.
Accordingly, the speakers of the two-day event concentrated on the good practices which can be used as models for future cross-border cooperation between Balkans nations.
One group of speakers presented best practices from the European Union:
- Deputy Secretary General Elisa Bertò (Tyrol-South-Tyrol-Trentino EGTC) presented the cross-border CLLD (community-led local development) projects at the Italy-Austria border.
- Xavier Conill, Director of the Cerdanya EGTC, introduced the first cross-border hospital and its management body from the Spanish-French border.
- Romina Kocina summarised the history and the achievements of the EGTC GO from the Italy-Slovenia border, including the two integrated territorial investments (ITI) implemented by the grouping.
- Nuño Almeida, Director of the Galicia-Norte Portugal EGTC and Inês Gusman professor of the University of Compostella gave an overview on the varied activities carried out at the Spanish-Portuguese border, e.g. the only cross-border smart specialisation strategy of the EU, the IACOBUS programme financing the exchange of university staff between Portuguese and Spanish tertiary educational institutions (“regional Erasmus”) working together within the University Without Borders project.
- Cecilia Braun presented the structure and the projects of the Rhine-Alpine Corridor EGTC connecting Rotterdam and Genova.
Another group of speakers introduced initiatives from South-East Europe:
- Michalis Petrakos, Secretary General, spoke about the EGTC initiative targeting the tri-border area (GR, MKN, AL) of Prespa Lake.
- Emmanouil Chatzopoulos, Director of the Development Agency of Drama, presented the ITI targeting the Greek side of the Rhodope Mountains.
- Christos Avdellas (Reframe Food), Vasilis Kotsikoris (Rainno), and Ninos Athanasopoulos (Captain) presented several projects targeting rural areas.
The third group of the speakers focused on the EU frames for CBC:
- Katerina Themeli (Managing Authority of ETC Programmes) spoke about Interreg.
- Marie-Aline Deltenre (DG REGIO) talked about the EU toolkit for CBC.
- Georgious Emmanouil (DG REGIO) discussed the macroregional context.
- Martín Guillermo-Ramírez (AEBR) spoke about obstacle management through the b-solutions initiative and the BRIDGEforEU tool, etc.
Separate panels were dedicated to cross-border
The event was closed by a roundtable discussion involving Sanda Simić, former assistant of minister (Serbia), Klaus Boele from the Committee of the Regions, Antonis Karvounis, Head of Department (Ministry of Interior of Greece), Martin Guillermo-Ramírez and Gyula Ocskay. The roundtable summarised the desired steps towards a roadmap for future CBC in Southeast Europe whose pillars were included in the closing declaration presented by Yannis Anastasiadis, Director of the Helicas EGTC, the chief organiser of the event. The participants considered the event a first step of a joint mission which will be continuing in the upcoming years.
Honlapunk a Külgazdasági és Külügyminisztérium támogatásával készült.
