The Danube Strategy Point, at the initiative of the Slovak EUSDR Presidency organised today the first meeting of the IPA and NDICI programme authorities within the region, in order to support and enhance the embedding process of the EUSDR objectives into the EU funded programmes.

 

Johan Magnusson, team leader within DG REGIO underlined that within its latest conclusions on MRS implementation the Council of the European “reaffirms the need for optimal use of existing financial resources” and that translating macro-regional strategies into the language of the programmes is expected to increase the impact for both MRS and financial instruments.

 

Gordon Purvis, Policy Officer within DG NEAR, gave an overview of the IPA and NDICI implementation of bilateral programmes, explained the general guiding programming principles and underlined that cooperation is the key and identifying and informing the stakeholders is what can lead to concrete actions of the embedding process.

 

Embedding is a coordinative process that has to be conducted at both macro-regional, national and regional levels, reflected into the national and regional policies and supported by the line ministries in the partner countries. Representatives of Serbia and Ukraine offered the national perspective in their countries on embedding, while the Romania-Serbia IPA CBC Managing Authority, being now at the third programming exercise showcased also the third translation of EUSDR objectives into programme activities.

 

Representatives of present programming and managing authorities agreed to establish the Danube Region IPA & NDICI Network in order to facilitate communication, exchange information and to “work closely together, in a coordinated and embedded way”, Michal Blaško from the Slovak EUSDR Presidency concluded.

 

The EUSDR Slovak Presidency finally ensured the programmes a full support of the Strategy and congratulated Romania-Serbia IPA CBC Managing Authority for taking the lead in organising the next meeting of the network due in June 2021.

 

The Meeting was facilitated by Interact and Tesim.

 

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The overall objective of macro-regional strategies is to pool resources and bring national approaches into a more coherent macro-level implementation in order to tackle common challenges. This should lead to visible results and in the long-term contribute to more economic, social and territorial cohesion

The preparation phase of the 2021-2027 programming period offers a unique opportunity for all EU programmes to address territorial challenges more strategically, through more coordinated and synergized actions stressing the European added value of funding, and encourage a dialogue between those involved in the programming process and the MRS. This embedding exercise is equally relevant for Cohesion Policy Funds in EU Member States as for EU programmes in non-EU countries (essentially IPA III and NDICI – former ENI).

 

The Danube Strategy Point has been supporting EUSDR stakeholders in conducting the embedding process, streamlining the strategic actions and coordinating between MRS actions and financial objectives but organising thematic meetings and developing an online embedding tool.