Attended by nearly 300 participants, the Danube Region Strategy Project Funding Conference presented the financial resources available for the funding of the Strategy's projects in the 2014-2020 development period in a structured manner.
Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Levente Magyar said in his opening address that “the Danube Region Strategy (DRS) receives particular attention from Hungary; we may well call it a Hungarian child, since it was adopted during the Hungarian EU Presidency in 2011. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will make every effort to bring as many identified projects into the implementation phase as possible, this is the reason why a Ministerial Commissioner has been assigned to this area within the Ministry”, the Minister of State emphasised.
Ministerial Commissioner for the Implementation of the Danube Region Strategy István Joó emphasised in his address that Hungary’s most important goal in the macro-regional cooperation is to significantly increase the number of international projects led by Hungarians or with pronounced Hungarian participation in the areas coordinated by Hungary within the fields of water quality, flood protection and energy, respectively.
The Ministerial Commissioner explained that so far the Strategy has been under preparation whereby the participating countries had laid down its foundations, and the results of their work had been integrated into various development programmes to achieve the greatest synergy possible.
Talking about non-EU countries, István Joó emphasised that Hungary will do its best also within the framework of the Strategy to promote the integration efforts of these countries: “this is why we launched a training programme on energy in Moldova and will start the training of flood protection specialists in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the transfer of Hungarian knowledge”.