EUSDR Priority Area Coordinators (PACs) met in Zagreb for two days at the invitation of the Croatian EUSDR Presidency to discuss the state of play of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region. The discussion points on the agenda emphasized the following:

• the embedding of the new EUSDR Action Plan into the language of various EU programmes to secure sufficient funding for Priority Area activities in the upcoming EU funding period 2021-2027;
• Priority Area Coordinators’ involvement in the upcoming 2nd Seed Money Facility Call by the Danube Transnational Programme;
  
• a new system to monitor developments and progress made within the Priority Areas and
  
• the Working Paper on EUSDR Governance and Management which defines roles and responsibilities among EUSDR stakeholders, as proposed by the Croatian EUSDR Presidency.

 

At the moment the embedding process as mentioned above is particularly high on the agenda, as the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the next financing period are expected to conclude soon. Meanwhile, programmes have started to plan which fields of action to finance in the period of 2021-2027.

This means that now is the time for EUSDR Priority Area Coordinators and National Coordinators to connect with Managing Authorities to make sure EUSDR actions are thematically represented in EU funded programmes.

The next steps in this process are to be defined during the second meeting of the EUSDR Task Force Embedding on 20th February in Brussels. This meeting is part of the 1st Macro-Regions Week organised by the European Commission from 17th to 21st February 2020.