Today representatives from ERDF/CF managing authorities of the nine EU member states within the Danube Region Strategy met for the first time to discuss future possibilities to jointly strengthen the implementation of EUSDR priorities on national level. The discussed options included:

 

1) Incorporating EUSDR topics into the Partnership Agreements and operational programmes of EUSDR participating states combined with

 

2) organising synchronised calls, which means that two or more IJG (Investment for Jobs and Growth) managing authorities from two or more partner countries would announce calls with the same thematic focus in parallel  and

 

3) organising activities which contribute to the EUSDR objectives outside EU member states in accordance with Article 57(4) of the draft Common Provisions Regulation (CPR).

 

4) National synergy-capitalisation calls: Projects of national mainstream programmes (or CBC programmes) building on the results of transnational projects with contribution to the EUSDR

 

Furthermore, the European Commission / DG REGIO expressed its continued strong support for embedding macro-regional strategies in mainstream (IJG/ERDF) programmes and shared further information about the ongoing coordination process within DG REGIO.

 

Judit Schrick-Szenczi from Priority Area 8 shared valuable experience in setting up the synchronised call “Innovation Express 2.0” and Claudia Singer from Priority Area 10 introduced activities of the ESF Network Danube Region to inspire future cooperation of ERDF managing authorities in the Danube Region.

 

The Danube Strategy Point has been facilitating this process of coordinating EUSDR priorities with possible funding sources (“EUSDR embedding tool”) and will also facilitate cooperation of ERDF/CF managing authorities together with the Slovak EUSDR Presidencies in the future.

 

All forces are joined for a more effective implementation of the Danube Region Strategy!