Brussels, 28/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - There is no question for the European Commissioner for Regional Development that the member states involved in the micro-regional strategy for the Danube question go into automatic pilot mode. Johannes Hahn went to stimulate the troops in Bucharest at the annual forum of the strategy on 28 October, stressing the need for the strategy to come as part of the financial programming 2014-2020. The meeting took place shortly after the Council's adoption of the Commission's encouraging analysis of strategies of this kind (see EUROPE 10949), which allow neighbouring member states to face common problems, such as pollution or crime, together.
In this case, the strategy for the Danube basin brings together nine countries of the European Union (Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia) and five countries which are not members of the Union (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ukraine and Moldova). This cooperation, which was started in 2011, is bearing fruit (400 projects are underway, representing €49 million), even beyond the aspirations of Johannes Hahn, who admitted in his opening speech that Iwe are achieving more, and more quickly, than I personally dared to hope. But that is not a reason to be complacent”. He therefore stressed to the European delegations present in Bucharest that the regional development programmes supported by the European structural funds should take account of this strategy from January 2014, for the next period of funding to run until 2020. He said that he had already seen moves towards this in the partnership agreements submitted to him by the member states. “Now we need to ensure that the Operational Programmes for 2014-2012 take the Danube Strategy fully on board”. He stressed that “their “political leaders, too, need to stay fully engaged in deciding the way forward”, adding that the strategy will not “continue to deliver if it goes on autopilot, or if it is assumed that the European Commission will do all the heavy lifting”.
The next forum on the Danube macro-strategy will be held in Vienna in June; in the meantime, the Commission will ask the member states to push forward their reflection on governance in the framework of an evaluation. (MD/transl.fl)