13 TH STEERING GROUP MEETING IN PRAGUE – 7 OCTOBER 2016
The Steering Group of the Priority Area 2 of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region has met in Prague on 7th October 2016 to discuss the future strategic direction of the Priority Area´s work.
The meeting has been opened by the Priority Area coordinators, Ms Markéta Ročejdlová from the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and Mr Pál Ságvári, Ambassador-at-large for Energy Security from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mrs Violeta Popova from the Danube Strategy Point has given latest information on the activities of the DSP, especially the processing of the reporting of the Priority Area Coordinators, the pilot EUSDR Strategic Projects and the discussion on the Seed Money Facility within the EUSDR. Mr Marco Onida, Team Leader from the European Commission has stressed that the EUSDR is entering different phase now with the financing from the Interreg DANUBE Transnational Programme. He touched upon the upcoming 5th Annual Forum of the EUSDR taking place in Bratislava at the start of November 2016 and also the preparation works on the EUSDR Strategic Project Fund.
The Priority Area Coordinators have further on informed the Steering group members of the activities which have taken place since May 2016, namely the 3rd Stakeholders’ seminar on the LNG in 26th
Mrs Alessandra Pala and her colleagues from the Joint Technical Secretariat of the Interreg DANUBE Transnational Programme has briefed the Steering Group on the past and coming call of the Interreg DANUBE programme and has presented the Seed Money Facility (SMF). The SMF is to support the development of project ideas at their very early stage by smaller amount of money provided (up to 1 500 000 EUR in total for the first SMF call). The Steering Group has been asked to identify several specific fields of highest priority in energy, which it would like the Joint Technical Secretariat Interreg DANUBE to focus on during the first call, which can be roughly expected in 2018.
As follow-up to the Stakeholders´ seminar on the LNG in May 2016, Mr Pál Ságvári has acquainted the present members with the LNG EUSDR position paper. Mr Felix Moldovan has later presented the planned activities and focus of the Hungarian presidency of the EUSDR in 2017 and afterwards the Priority Area Coordinators have presented the newly drafted Roadmaps and milestones for fulfilling the actions and targets and the Steering Group has discussed the proposals.
In the last part of the meeting the Steering Group has discussed the PA2 Strategic projects and was presented the state of play of the EUSDR and Carpathian Convention Memorandum of Understanding. Ms Eliška Rolfová from the Czech presidency of the Convention has presented possible synergies between the organisations.
Agenda and presentations from the 13th meeting of the Steering Group of the Priority Area 2 can be found below:
Agenda_-_PA2_13TH_STEERING_GROUP
