On 26th of October, we held our Annual Event 2021 organised as part of the 10th EUSDR Annual Forum in Slovakia. Due to the pandemic situation, the event was held in a hybrid format, with 589 participants joining us online and tens of more attending in Bratislava. We were thrilled to see so many project partners, representatives of Member States, as well as the European Commission to take part and discuss the future of the Danube Region!

The event started with opening remarks about future of transnational cooperation and objectives in relations to the Danube space from the Head of Unit at DG REGIO in charge of Neighbourhood Cross-Border Cooperation, Jean-Pierre Halkin. After, Head of Managing Authority, Imre Csalagovits presented an overview of cooperation in the Danube Region reaching back to 1966 with the CADSES Programme, through the South-East Europe Programme (SEE), followed by the ongoing 2014-2020 programming period and continuing with the future Programme. The second part of the event consisted of short introduction of topics to be supported in the 2021-2027 programming period by the Project Officers at the Joint Secretariat of the Danube Transnational Programme.

Several Interreg Danube projects were presented during the two days of the EUSDR Annual Forum too. In the session titled DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND INNOVATIONS, Grit Ackermann, from Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, CINEMA - Creative Industries for New Urban Economies in the Danube Region, Alexandru Marin, from Bucharest Polytechnic University, RESTART_4Danube, and Ralitsa Zhekova, from Regional Agency for Entrepreneurship and Innovations, WOMEN IN BUSINESS - Fostering the Young Women Entrepreneurship in the Danube Region, showed their perspectives on the topic and presented their projects’ results in the field. In the second session, titled BIODIVERSITY - THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES, Kerstin Bock, from World Wild Fund for Nature Austria, presented project LIFELINEMDD - Protecting and restoring ecological connectivity in the Mura-Drava-Danube river corridor through cross-sectoral cooperation.

The full event recording is available here.