Slovenian Presidency hosting EUSAIR Governing Board within the Mediterranean Coast and Macro-regional Strategies Week
With its geographical location, Slovenia is involved in as many as three of the four European macro-regional connections, including, together with eight other countries, in the Adriatic Ionian region, which it also chairs from 1 June 2020 until 31 May 2021.
The idea of a macro-regional strategy, which received the greatest political support as early as 2014, is to integrate in areas or fields where countries alone cannot effectively meet the challenges, they are facing.
Despite the pandemic that threatened the implementation of Slovenia's ambitious program in the region, the Governing Board, which is taking place today virtually and brings together representatives of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, the European Commission, other prominent EU institutions and Slovenia praised the smooth but slightly adjusted implementation of the program. In less than four months of implementation, the topics that the region will strive to implement in a coordinated manner in the future programming period related to the fields of blue growth, connectivity of the region, environmental quality and sustainable tourism have been unanimously agreed upon.
The Government Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Development and EU Cohesion Policy (GODC), together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, together with local stakeholders in the region highlights cooperation in the field of knowledge and innovation, with special attention given this year to the youth.
Praise for smooth operation in the new situation was also received by the committee's support point for the strategy, i.e. EUSAIR Facility Point, whose leading partner is GODC, which cooperates on a daily basis at the operational level with all the above-mentioned countries and representatives of the European Commission. In the uncertain future, members have shattered the Point’s efforts to provide the region and its interests visibility towards key decision-making institutions - one region, one vote. They also unanimously supported the idea of continuing networking of the managing authorities in the region.
One of the main events in the framework of the Mediterranean Coast and Macro-regional Strategies Week will continue with the events listed in its program. The second central GODC event within the Week will take place next week with the first meeting of Smart Specialization Strategies in the region, where special attention will be paid to untapped potentials in the field of blue growth in Slovenia.
