Miroslav Veskovic,

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EU MACRO-REGIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE DANUBE REGION

• Miroslav Veskovic,
• EU Danube Strategy Priority Area 7 Coordinator

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THE DANUBE REGION
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Main goals of the EU Strategy for the Danube
Region (EUSDR)

• Sustainable development of the Danube region
  through joint cooperation and involvement of all
  countries in the Danube region.
• To fully use already existing resources, and to
  develop the Danube Region without new
  institutions, new legislations and new funds.

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Who will benefit and how?

• The 115 million people living in the Danube
  Region will benefit from
• faster transport by road and rail
• cleaner transport by improving the navigability
  of rivers
• cheaper and more secure energy thanks to better
  connections and alternative sources
• a better environment with cleaner water,
  protected biodiversity, and cross-border  flood
  prevention
• a prosperous region, through working together on
  the economy, education, social inclusion, and
  research and innovation
• attractive tourist and cultural destinations,
  developed and marketed jointly
• a safer, well-governed region, thanks to better
  cooperation and coordination of government and
  non-governmental organisations

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Green light for the EU Strategy for the Danube
Region by the Council

• The ministers of the 27 EU Member States, have on
  April 13 in Luxembourg, endorsed the EU Strategy
  for the Danube Region adopted by the European
  Commission last December (IP/10/1687).
  Preparations for implementation of the Strategy
  are already underway. Around 200 priority actions
  will contribute to developing the area's huge
  economic potential and improving environmental
  conditions in the region.

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Future event

• 24 June 2011 (planned) Official endorsement of
  the EUSDR by the European Council and launch of
  the implementation phase.

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The structure of the Action Plan
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The difference between projects and actions
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Cooperation

• Each Priority Area has to be considered with
  other policy fields.
• Therefore, for the implementation of each
  Priority Area, it is important that there is
  involvement of bodies and institutions
  representing other policy fields.

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Implementation and governance

• A sustainable framework for cooperation
• Coordination
• Implementation
• Funding
• Reporting and evaluation
• No new EU funds, no new EU legislation, no new EU
  Structures

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Coordination

• The coordination of each Priority AreaPA is the
  task of Member States (together with non Member
  States), in consultation with the Commission, and
  relevant EU agencies and regional bodies.

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Priority Area Coordinators

• Coordination of each Priority Area is allocated
  to a Priority Area Coordinators -PAC.
• These are at the heart of making the Strategy
  operational, and bear a central responsibility
  for its success. They work on its implementation,
  in close contact with the Commission, with all
  stakeholders involved, especially other
  countries, but also Regional and Local
  Authorities, Inter-Governmental and
  Non-Governmental Bodies.

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PAC

• Priority Area Coordinators, should demonstrate
  Danube wide commitment, acceptance and expertise,
  ensure implementation (e.g. by agreeing on
  planning, with targets, indicators and
  timetables, and by ensuring wide contacts between
  project promoters, programmes and funding
  sources, providing technical assistance and
  advice). This work will be trans-national,
  inter-sectoral and inter-institutional.

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EUSDR Pillar C Priority Area 7

• C) BUILDING PROSPERITY IN THE DANUB REGION

7) TO DEVELOP THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY THROUGH
RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGIES Priority Area Coordinators Republic
of Serbia and Republic of Slovakia
A society's ability to create and exploit
knowledge is a key factor for progress and
growth. A society based on knowledge needs
competitive research and education
infrastructure, innovation supporting and
facilitating institutions, and high performing
information and communication technologies. These
framework conditions differ remarkably throughout
the Danube Region but remain, overall, below the
level of EU27. Here, the European Social Fund
(ESF) could be more widely used to support
actions and projects.
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Targets

• Targets as examples could be
• To invest 3 of GDP in Research and Development
  by 2020
• Broadband access for all EU citizens in the
  Region by 2013
• Increase the number of patents obtained in the
  Region by 50
• Increase the share of the EU population aged
  30-34 with tertiary or equivalent education to
  40 by 2020.

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Targets

• By 2020, all citizens of the Region should enjoy
  better prospects of higher education, employment
  and prosperity in their own home area. The
  Strategy should make this a truly 21st century
  region, secure and confident, and one of the most
  attractive in Europe.

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But

• The Region encompasses the extremes of the EU in
  economic and social terms. From its most
  competitive to its poorest regions, from the most
  highly skilled to the least educated, and from
  the highest to the lowest standard of living, the
  differences are striking. The Strategy reinforces
  Europe 2020, offering the opportunity to match
  the capital-rich with the labor-rich, and the
  technologically-advanced with the waiting
  markets, in particular through expanding the
  knowledge society and with a determined approach
  to inclusion. Marginalised communities
  (especially Roma, the majority of whom live in
  the Region) in particular should benefit.

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Marginalised communities

• One third of EU's population at risk of poverty,
  many from marginalised groups, live in the area.
  Roma communities, 80 of whom live in the Region,
  suffer especially from social and economic
  exclusion, spatial segregation and sub-standard
  living conditions. Efforts to escape these have
  EU-wide effects, but the causes must be addressed
  first in the Region.

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Prosperity - jobs, innovation, growth-main issues

• Building Prosperity
• When it comes to prosperity, the Danube is a
  region of contradictions.
• Some areas are rich in capital but have a small
  workforce, while in others unemployment is high.
• Including everyone in training opportunities and
  matching workers to jobs across the Region is a
  basic principle for growth. Better connections
  between business and research will help spread
  innovation and jobs. Finally, everyone must
  benefit from the push to prosperity
• The Strategy outlines three priorities which will
  reduce the divide
• Develop the knowledge society through research,
  education and information technologies
• Support business competitivity
• Invest in people and skills.

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• Education skills
• Investment in people is needed so that the
  Region can sustainably progress and grow,
  prioritising knowledge and inclusion. Building on
  the success of parts of the Region will open
  access to further education, and modernise
  training and social support.
• Research Innovation
• Targeted support for research infrastructure
  will stimulate excellence and deepen networking
  between knowledge providers, companies and
  policy-makers. The region must use national and
  regional funds better, and benefit fully from the
  European Research Area. Existing bilateral
  agreements should lead to multilateral
  coordination. Developing regions downstream can
  benefit from the leading - indeed world-class -
  innovative regions upstream.

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• Enterprises
• Top-performing regions in Europe can be found
  in the area. Others lag a long way behind. They
  need to benefit, through better connections
  between innovation and business supporting
  institutions. Clusters and links between centres
  of excellence, binding them into existing
  education and research networks, will extend the
  competitiveness of upstream enterprises to the
  whole region.
• Employment market
• Higher levels of employment are crucial.
  People need opportunities close to where they
  live. They also need mobility. The Region needs
  to offer a future to the brightest and most
  enterprising, through stronger cooperation
  regarding policies, measures and information
  exchange.

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PA 7 ACTIONS-proposed by the Action Plan

• To cooperate in implementing the flagship
  initiative Innovation Union of the Europe 2020
  Strategy in the Danube Region countries
• To coordinate better national, regional and EU
  funds to stimulate excellence in research and
  development, in research areas specific for the
  Danube Region.

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Actions

• To strengthen the capacities of research
  infrastructure.
• To strengthen cooperation among universities and
  research facilities and to upgrade research and
  education outcomes by focusing on unique selling
  points.
• To develop and implement strategies to improve
  the provision and uptake of Information and
  Communication Technologies in the Danube Region.

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Actions

• To draw up internet strategies.
• To use e-content and e-services to improve the
  efficiency and effectiveness of public and
  private services.
• To stimulate the emergence of innovative ideas
  for products and services and their wide
  validation in the field of the Information
  Society, using the concept of Living Labs.

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Mechanisms of organizing, connecting and financing

• What we can learn from EU Baltic Sea Region
• Strategy?

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Baltic Sea Strategy-experience

• The Lab Group. In order to support the programmes
  in identifying their role in the Strategy
  implementation and define operational
  responsibilities, management challenges and
  potentials, the INTERACT Programme established
  the Baltic Sea Strategy Laboratory Group in
  January 2009. The Laboratory Group is coordinated
  by INTERACT Point Turku.
• The Baltic Sea Strategy Laboratory Group is an
  informal working group consisting mainly of
  program practitioners from the Member States
  involved. The group is set up to seek operative
  solutions to identified points that will imply
  consequences on practical program management. The
  group met 6 times during 2009 and organised a
  major conference in Riga where both
  representatives from the Managing Authorities and
  the Priority Area Coordinators participated to
  discuss good practice in aligning funding to the
  Strategy.
• The Network on Funding and Financing the EU
  Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region initiated by
  the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance is also
  contributing to the work on developing new
  solutions on how to fund the priorities in the
  EUSBSR.

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Baltic Organizations Network for Funding
Sciences-BONUS

• Strategic Development 2010-2011
• Implementation 2012-2016
• The objective of BONUS-169 is to integrate Baltic
  Sea System research into a durable
  interdisciplinary, well-integrated and focused
  multinational programme to support the regions
  sustainable development. It will deal with the
  continuum of the sea and the coast and the
  interdependencies with the catchment.

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Financing EUSDR

• Alignment of funds
• Financial engineering

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Examples of financing covering the Region

• Expenditures budgeted by the Structural Funds1
  in 2007-20132
• Research, innovation, entrepreneurship
  EUR 13.9 b
• Information Society EUR 3.6 b
• Human capital EUR 13.0 b
• Inclusion EUR 7.6 b
• 1 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
  including cross-border cooperation, Cohesion Fund
  and European Social Fund for the Member States.
  The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance and
  the European Neighbourhood and Partnership
  Instrument (ENPI) are not included.
• 2 However, the use of Structural Funds depends
  on the specific operational programmes, developed
  and agreed upon at the beginning of the 2007-2013
  programming period in close collaboration between
  the European Commission and the respective Member
  States/ Regions. These should offer opportunities
  for funding for specific actions/ projects,
  depending on the priorities and measurements/
  actions identified in the respective operational
  programmes.

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Other sources of financing

• Other EU programmes contribute to this pillar C
  PA7, in particular the 7th Research Framework
  Programme, the Instrument for Pre-Accession
  Assistance (IPA) National, Cross-border
  Cooperation and Multi-beneficiary country
  programmes, several programmes of the European
  Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI)
  (such as the Regional programmes or the
  Cross-border Cooperation Programmes), the
  European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development
  (EAFRD), the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) and
  the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme.
  National, regional and local policies also
  finance important projects. In addition,
  significant financing is already provided to a
  large number of projects via lending and/ or
  co-financing from various International and
  Bilateral Finance Institutions such as the
  European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank
  for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the
  World Bank, the Council of Europe Development
  Bank (CEB) or other lenders.

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Financial engineering

• More recently, for the countries of the Western
  Balkans, additional efforts have been made to
  better coordinate and blend instruments for
  grants and loans via the Western Balkans
  Investment Framework (WBIF). The Western Balkan
  Investment Framework (WBIF) is a blending
  instrument for grants and loans for candidate
  countries and potential candidates.

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Financial engineering

• In addition to project funding, the question
  of the availability of technical assistance money
  for covering running costs involved with the
  Strategy on the parts of Priority Area
  Coordinators and Flagship Project Leaders (e.g.
  hiring additional coordinators, project
  preparation costs, travel and meeting costs)
  should be widely discussed during the early
  implementation phase and is likely to gain in
  importance as Strategy-related activities grow in
  scope. A questionnaire to PACs on Priority Area
  needs was developed by DG Regional Policy. The
  results show that technical assistance costs pose
  a challenge to many PAs and FPs and may reduce
  the amount of activities carried out. The
  Commission is therefore investigating various
  options to solving this challenge, including the
  possibility of creating a Trust Fund for the
  Strategy in cooperation with the EIB, and will
  raise the issue in a forthcoming meetings with
  the NCPs.

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Implementing EUSDR

• As with all of its funding programmes, Brussels
  has proposed an administrative structure for the
  new Danube region strategy in the form of a lean
  technical secretariat supplemented by regional
  contact centres.
• With the existing structures of National Contact
  Points, Priority Area Coordination and Flagship
  Projects, the operational programmes can offer
  solutions enabling the effective use of available
  funds that at the same time can strengthen the
  existing strategic setup of each programme.

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What should be done by the Priority Area
Coordinators to implement the EUSDR Priority 7?

• The focus of the two coordinators, Slovakia and
  Serbia, during the implementation phase should
  be on developing the right structures for the
  cooperation.
• At bilateral meetings, the PACs should agree on
  a common approach for the PA, on the division of
  work and responsibilities, as well as on next
  steps.

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Main tasks for PACs

• Establishing the network of National Contact
  Points-NCP
• List of contact persons for all MS for the
  priority area
• Establish personal contacts with Interact
  concerning financing possibilities.
• Setting up the Priority 7 web portal
• Organise the kick off meeting
• Discus on the need for other than the already
  suggested flagships with stakeholders on a
  national level.
• Initiate search for stakeholders in member
  states.

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• Centers of excellence
• Smart specialisation

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Main tasks for PACs

• Bringing together people from businesses,
  national and regional governments and academics
  every year, learning from and sharing good ideas
  with the EU Strategy for the Baltic Region.

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Implementation phase

• The PA 7 should have its kick-off meeting as soon
  as possible. The main aim of the meeting should
  be to clarify the role of the Priority Area
  Coordinators (PACs) and Flagship Project Leaders
  in implementation of the EUSDR and discuss the
  formula of future cooperation in the PA 7.

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Implementation phase

• The main issues are the discussion and sharing
  experiences about flagship status (bottlenecks of
  manning, design and implementation phase, need
  for financial support both for technical
  assistance and projects implementation etc.).
• Throughout the implementation phase, the PAC
  should carry out a thorough re-examination of
  the Flagship Projects.
• In addition to continuously monitoring the
  progress of the Flagship Projects, the next steps
  for the PACs will involve the establishment of
  links to other Priority Areas

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Implementation phase

• The next step is to launch the regional network
  of universities, research institutes and
  companies.
• Smart specialisation

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PA 7 To exploit the full potential of the
region in research and innovation

• The development of knowledge-intensive products
  and services is a crucial factor if companies are
  to be competitive in the global market. At policy
  level, countries, and particularly regions, must
  develop efficient innovation systems. This is the
  key challenge that will be addressed by the
  Coordinators for this Area.

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Examples of already existing structures in the
Region

• INTERACT
• DRC
• ICA CASEE
• BYHOST
• KNOWLWDGE CLASTER
• ..

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INTERACT

• What does INTERACT do?
• They provide practical support, training and
  advice to European Territorial cooperation
  programmes on management techniques, financial
  issues, European regulations, communication,
  strategic orientation and policy development.
• They also offer a unique forum for European
  Territorial Cooperation stakeholders by
  supporting institutional and thematic networks on
  topics of common interest.
• They offer regular advertised services for all
  programmes, but they can also be contacted at any
  time by any programme to provide tailor-made
  services meeting specific programme needs.
• Their expertise includes
• Programme and financial management
• Project management and support
• Capitalisation for cooperation
  programmes and projects
• Strategic programme planning
• Audit and control
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Communications

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What is INTERACT role and support?

• INTERACT, based on its mandate by the EU Member
  States and the Commission, is offering dedicated
  support to cooperation programmes involved in the
  preparation and implementation of EU
  Macro-Regional Strategies.
• INTERACT Point Vienna is contact point for ETC
  programmes within the Danube Region Strategy and
  coordinates the Danube LabGroup, whose
  functioning and composition are comparable to
  those of the Baltic Sea LabGroup.

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INTERACT Point Vienna

• INTERACT Point Vienna is responsible for
  delivering INTERACT services for the
  south-eastern part of the European Union. It is
  hosted by the City of Vienna, Austria.
• INTERACT Point Vienna develops and offers
  services addressed to the needs of European
  Territorial Cooperation programmes, with a
  specific focus on new Member States, Accession
  and Pre-Accession Countries.
• IP Vienna is the first contact point for 28
  cross-border programmes located in this area,
  covering 11 Member States, 7 candidate and
  pre-candidate countries (so-called IPA
  countries), as well as 2 associated countries
  (Switzerland and Liechtenstein).

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INTERACT Programme Secretariat

• The regional approach of the INTERACT II
  Programme is ensured through the four INTERACT
  Points, while a common and shared approach on
  themes and work packages is guaranteed by
  coordination undertaken by the INTERACT
  Secretariat.
• Services
• In addition, the IS performs certain horizontal
  tasks by leading the efforts of the programme in
  communications, knowledge management and quality
  assurance. It is also responsible for managing
  the relationships with other network programmes
  and National Contact Persons, as well as
  undertaking the Technical Assistance functions.
• Contact us
• INTERACT Programme Secretariat
• Sabinovská 16 820 05 Bratislava 25 Slovak
  Republic 421 2 48264 310interact_at_interact-eu.n
  et

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INTERACT Labgroup on the Danube Region Strategy

• In 2011, INTERACT Point Vienna is setting up a
  "Danube Labgroup", a think tank that will reflect
  on the effects and concerns, new challenges and
  potentialities, of the macro-regional strategy
  for day-to-day management of different
  operational programmes.

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DANUBE RECTORS CONFERENCE

• The University network consisted of 52 higher
  education institutions from 13 countries in the
  Danube Region.
• Can be used
• To strengthen cooperation among universities and
  research facilities and to upgrade research and
  education outcomes by focusing on unique selling
  points.

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ICA CASEE
The ICA Regional Network for Central and South
Eastern Europe, in short CASEE, is a network of
Central and South Eastern European Higher
Education Institutions relating to the Life
Science disciplines (agriculture, food,
biotechnology, natural resources, rural
development and the environment).
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BAYHOST

• The Bavarian Academic Center for Central,
  Eastern and Southeastern Europe (BAYHOST)
  coordinates academic relations with Eastern
  Europe and supports academic exchanges between
  students and scientists. Bavaria offers one-year
  scholarships to graduates from Eastern Europe.
  There are also grants for summer language courses
  all across the same area and for German courses
  at Bavarian universities and universities of
  applied sciences. BAYHOST hosts exchange forums
  to help the business sector benefit from numerous
  academic contacts in Eastern Europe.

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Conclusion

• The Strategy provides a sustainable framework for
  policy integration and coherent development of
  the Danube Region. It sets out priority actions
  to make it an EU region for the 21st century. It
  must be accompanied by sufficient information and
  publicity to ensure its objectives are widely
  known.
• The Region needs results. After decades of
  division and often conflict, the region will be a
  better place for its people and a showcase and
  gate to the world.

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• THANK YOU!
• Miroslav Veskovic veskovic_at_uns.ac.rs