Event Report: "Presenting the new EU Strategy for the Danube Region"
On 20 April 2011 a high-level conference took place on the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) organized by the Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS). The goal of the conference was to present the Strategy from both national and European perspectives and to highlight important issues that the Strategy aims to tackle. The first panel provided an overview of national standpoints of selected countries. The second panel covered important questions regarding the implementation such as the financing aspects and addressed in more details the transport and environmental challenges in the Danube basin.
Károly Bárd, pro-rector for Hungarian and European Affairs at CEU in his welcoming speech pointed out that the 20th anniversary of the university coincides with the Hungarian EU Presidency. The Danube strategy conference is a part of a series of conferences covering the Presidency priorities.
The keynote speaker, David Sweet, Advisor to the Director-General of the DG Regional Policy expressed the pleasure of the European Commission that the General Affairs Council endorsed the EUSDR. The launch will take place at the end of the Hungarian Presidency during the European Council Summit in June. As the second macro-regional strategy, the EUSDR has a key role in determining whether or not this method of working is functioning or not. Mr Sweet also addressed the question of what a macro-regional strategy is: it is a common approach agreed by a group of countries and regions to achieve certain specific objectives, especially when these objectives cannot be reached by traditional means. He also explained why the Danube region needs a strategy. The first reason is the region’s dynamism and rapid growth. Secondly, it is a very diverse region from the economic perspective, with Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg being among the richest regions in the EU and when going downstream with Romania, Bulgaria or Ukraine being on the poorer end of the economic spectrum. But it is a diverse region from the legal perspective as well, including old Member States, new Member States, candidate and pre-candidate countries. Thirdly, it has multiple levels of activity with not only countries but also regions and cities as actors. And last but not least, the region has diverse needs in the area of transport and environmental protection, economic opportunities, innovation, socio-cultural links and security needs. In order to address these diverse needs, the EUSDR should offer a flexible, consensus-based, participatory and integrated response. The EUSDR is based on four pillars: (1) connecting people and goods, (2) protecting the environment, (3) enabling innovation, prosperity and growth in the context of inclusion and (4) strengthening institutions, the rule of law and security across the region. It has two principles: establishing cross-sectoral integration and clear objectives and targets. The task ahead is to start the full implementation. The role of the European Commission will be to monitor the activity, continue with the flow of information and make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Strategy.
The second keynote speech had been delivered by Etelka Barsi-Pataky, Hungarian Government Commissioner for the Danube Strategy, who summarized the current state of play and the tasks lying ahead, highlighting some specific aspects of the Strategy. She started by saying that Central and Eastern Europe represents diversity and heterogeneity of the cultures, languages and traditions. Central Europe has grown spiritually and culturally into a political and economic reality. As a part of the Central European cooperation, she mentioned the so called Szeged process which contributed to the democratic changes in Serbia. The Hungarian Presidency wishes to symbolically continue this process as the part of the Danube Strategy in the form of the Szeged plus initiative which does not only improve the competitiveness of SMEs but also favors the European integration process of the Western Balkans. Concerning the current state of play, the EUSDR has reached a milestone, because Member States gave a green light by agreeing on the main principles and the first steps of the Strategy. The Communication document underlines that the Strategy requires no new EU funds, no change of the legislation and creates no additional structures. Instead of the principle of three ‘no’-s, the Hungarian Presidency is an advocate of the principle of three ‘yes’ – yes to better alignment of funding, yes to more efficient coordination of instruments and yes to new ideas. The first part of the Presidency agenda has been reached and completed. The second half of the Hungarian Presidency is linked to the pre-implementation phase. The EUSDR gives a great opportunity to the better use of the EU structural funds. Internal and external coordination between managing authorities of these programs and the coordinators of the priority areas of the Strategy should intensify their work in order to agree on common projects and reallocate funding accordingly. Apart from cohesion policy funds, there are also other resources available from the EU Agricultural Fund for Rural Development or under the 7th Research Framework Programme. Finally, she concluded by saying that the Strategy allows better exploiting alternative energy resources, a higher degree of environmental cooperation and upgrade of transport and trade links, ensures security and fight against organized crime and corruption and helps overcoming socio-economic disparities.
Ján Hudacký, State Secretary at the Slovak Ministry of Transport, presented the activities and priorities of the Ministry in the field of transport infrastructure. The policy of the Slovak government is oriented to sustainable mobility which can only be achieved by better connections between regions. Slovakia believes that better transport system can help reducing regional disparities and emissions of harmful gases from transport. Therefore, Slovakia will support measures and join actions to improve transport and mobility interconnectivity by completing TEN-T priority projects (rail and road) and by improving the Danube waterway navigability for 300 days/year at minimum. Slovakia will also pursue environmental protection and biodiversity preservation and develop sustainable tourism and travel models.
Karl Holmeier, Member of the German Bundestag, presented the position of the German Bundestag about the Danube Strategy. From the German perspective, he firstly stressed the importance of the principle of subsidiarity that must stand in the forefront. Secondly, the Member States and regions must remain the main actors. Thirdly, he also pointed out the importance of transparent decision-making and the participation of the civil society. He continued with mentioning some areas where the EUSDR can bring an added value: it can improve the trans-national transport infrastructure and cross-border mobility of goods and people, contribute to the economic development and reduce social disparities. The German proposal supports the youth participation and intercultural dialogue of young people. He further mentioned that tourism can significantly contribute to the improvement of the living standards of the inhabitants in the Danube basin. To conclude, he talked about the importance of rural development and strengthening agriculture that from the German point of view are missing from the EUSDR.
Petra Szávics, Counsellor to the Minister of Environment of Romania, began with some general information about the Danube river. Romania is co-coordinating three priority areas: (PA1) Improvement of mobility and intermodality (inland waterways), (PA3) Promotion of culture, tourism and of people to people actions and (PA5) Management of environmental risks (together with Hungary). The Ministry of Environment selected more than 10 running cooperation projects to contribute to the fulfillment of the Strategy objectives, i.e. Danube Floodrisk. Since there are no extra financial resources behind the EUSDR, she also stressed the importance of the better use of available funds. The Ministry has already started to identify potential sources of financing of projects. Environment is an important dimension in the region, due to its ecological richness, but also to its environmental fragility. Therefore, the Strategy addresses the existing environmental concerns through its second pillar with 3 priority areas.
Matthias Kollatz-Ahnen, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) expressed the readiness of Bank to take an active role in financing the Danube Strategy and to become one of the potential financial sources, next to structural funds and other instruments. The EIB maintains good links with the countries involved in the EUSDR. It has strongly contributed to the Baltic Sea Strategy and this experience can be a valuable input to the Danube Strategy. One potential approach could be co-financing of EU structural funds with money from the EIB. However, there are significant implementation delays in the structural funds and there are some countries that have so far used very little from the possible funds. He suggested that the countries of the EUSDR should create a small Secretariat to enhance the coordination process. Last but not least, he pointed out two specific commitments of the EIB in the EUSDR: to improve the navigation on the Danube in a sustainable way and to support the de-pollution of the river which cannot be achieved on national levels.
Eva Lichtenberger, Member of the European Parliament (EP), Vice-President of the Greens, talked about the debate going on in the EP concerning TEN-T projects. She emphasized the view that since the list of these projects has been decided a long time ago by heads of state according to national aspects, it does not really correspond to transport needs within Europe as a whole and in the Danube region in particular. Therefore, the EP would welcome a change in this issue. In the rivalry between rail and road, the latter usually wins over the former, but in order to really modernize railway infrastructure and for a sustainable, ecological way of transport, rail and inland navigation should be supported. She suggested focusing more on ports, connection points and on the logistics (bringing the infrastructure to the river). Another pre-requisite for good navigation on the Danube is having reliable up-to-date statistics about the flows of goods. She also mentioned that in order to take the EUSDR further, the debate has to continue during the next Presidencies, too. However, she pointed out that there is no mentioning of the EUSDR in the program of the Polish Presidency.
Cesare Bernabei from the DG Mobility and Transport, presented the trans-European transport program related to the EUSDR and inland waterway transport in the Danube area. The core and comprehensive network for the trans-European network will be published in June. The approach undertaken in the new guidelines is that of integrating the transport systems between the Member States and non-Member States. An important issue will be the access to the region and creating points, effective ports in particular, which are capable to attract the industry construction and contribute to the development of the region. In this regard one has to cope with the problem of countries having different legislation. He suggested that local population and national representatives should come forward with the real necessities of developing the country in a sustainable way. It is important to guarantee a certain number of days per year for navigation to transporters, otherwise they will continue using trucks. Concerning necessary R&D activities, he mentioned the modernization of vessels, creating maritime volumetric navigation systems, cargo vessels for inland ports or battery power boats.
Ivan Matic from the Young Citizens Danube Network presented the organization and its goal to increase youth participation in EUSDR and raise the voice of the youth in the Danube region.
Péter Balázs, director of CENS, in his closing remarks highlighted the strong political will and a very flexible and constructive reaction from the European institutions concerning the EUSDR. He said that the Strategy is an excellent tool for attracting the neighboring countries and a means of trans-sectoral cooperation. He also pointed out that most of the participating countries are land-locked countries and the Danube represents the only connection for them with water.
Online media coverage related to the conference (in Hungarian and English):
http://www.echotv.hu/gazdasag/aktiv_reszvetel_kell_a_dunastrategia_megvalositasahoz.html
http://kitekinto.hu/bem-rakpart/2011/04/21/egy_fejlett_es_viragzo_kozep-kelet-europa_az_almunk/
http://www.cib.hu/ebroker/hirportal/allampapir_penzpiac/index?id=ad189d
http://hirek.logportal.hu/az-eib-allhat-a-duna-strategia-moge
http://www.fn.hu/makro/20110420/europai_beruhazasi_bank_beszall/
http://www.gazdasagiradio.hu/cikk/62676
http://www.mno.hu/portal/779152
http://www.privatbankar.hu/frisshir/hircentrum/az_eib_allhat_a_duna_strategia_moge_97980