On 14-15 February 2019, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs organised the meeting of the National EUSDR Coordinators in Bucharest, under the aegis of the Romanian Presidency on the European Union’s Strategy for the Danube Region, and with the technical support from the Regional EUSDR Secretariat. The purpose of the meeting is to reach an agreement regarding the roadmap and the Calendar for revising the Strategy Action Plan.
The meeting was attended by national coordinators and representatives from the following Danube Strategy member states: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Republic of Moldova, Romania and the Ukraine, as well as representatives from the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG Regio) of the European Commission and of the Danube Transnational Programme.
Secretary of State for European Affairs, Melania-Gabriela Ciot, opened the works of the meeting, presenting the subjects and priorities of the Romanian Presidency over EUSDR: “The main political objective of the Romanian Presidency over EUSDR is to relaunch the Strategy after revising its Action Plan of 2010. The ongoing revision process is inclusive, transparent, open and, therefore, successful.”
Additional information
The European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) is one of the four macro-regional strategies of the European Union, initiated and successfully promoted by Romania and Austria and endorsed by the European Council in 2011. EUSDR is a cooperation platform for the states in the Danube basin, intended for economic and social development of the Danube River macro-region and a framework for putting together the priority objectives of national development and those of the “Europe 2020” Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, undertaken by the member states of the European Union.
Fourteen countries are part of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region: nine member states of the European Union (Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Croatia, Germany – as a federal state and through the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary) and five third-party countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Moldova and Ukraine). The Strategy has four main objectives: Connecting the Danube region, – Protecting the environment, – Building prosperity, – Strengthening the region, and it is divided into 11 priority areas.
Romania coordinates three of these priority areas: navigation on inland waterways (through the Ministry of Transport, together with Austria), promoting the culture, tourism and direct contact between people (through the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, Ministry of Culture and National Identity, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Romanians Abroad and the Department for Interethnic Relations, together with Bulgaria) and management of environmental risks (through the Ministry for Water and Forests, together with Hungary).