Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism

1. EU Strategy for the Danube: a new challenge in the
context of the territorial cohesion in the SEE
Bucharest, 20 January 2010
SEE Joint Technical Secretariat

2. Danube area…

3. …the SEE area

4. The financial instruments
E RDF 228 ME uro
3.337.268
IPA (yearly)
E NPI 1.000.000

5. The Programme budget
ERDF Nat. Pub. Contr. Total % IPA 2nd CfP
P1. Facilitation of innovation and
44,051,157 7,773,734 51,824,891 85%
entrepreneurship 4,333,383.80 EUR
P2. Protection and improvement of
53,739,828 9,483,499 63,223,327 85%
the environment
P3. Improvement of the accessibility 55,160,834 9,734,265 64,895,099 85%
P4. Development of transnational
synergies for sustainable growth areas 41,338,329 7,294,999 48,633,328 85%
228,576,645.00 EUR

6. Results of the 1st Call for proposals
Status Submitted EoIs Eligible EoIs Invited EoIs Eligible AFs Approved
Overall 809 615 95 71 40
Rate 100% 76.02% 11.74% 8.78% 4.94%
ERDF req. N.A. 957.842.479 168.674.925 128.753.792 76.628.855
Rate N.A. 419% 74% 56% 34%

7. The “Danube” projects
Acronym AoI Short description
DANUBE FLOODRISK 2.1 Management and forecast of flood risk
WANDA 2.2 Ship waste management along the
Danube
DANUBEPARKS 2.3 Conservation of natural heritage of
Danube river
NEWADA 3.1 Improvement of physical accessibility
of waterway infrastructure
NELI 3.2 Cooperation for know-how sharing and
innovation in inland navigation
DONAUREGIONEN+ 4.2 Developing a joint Danube Regions
Development strategy
DATOURWAY 4.2 Development of tourism

8. The failures: lack of transnationality
• Umbrella project – collection of partners from different
countries with hardly related problems / activities into a
partnership under vague objectives;
• Inventing a problem - that is not really relevant on
transnational level, but based on local needs of PPs
forming a partnership

9. The failures: missing objectives
• Proposal narrowly focused with little impact on SEE area
– solving the problems of a fish species in Danube (there
are other programmes)
– International cultural festival (not promotion of use of
cultural values for development)
• Pure research and technology development - without
clear links to other actors (public administration
/industry)
– more concrete, tangible results expected!

10. The failures: poor planning
• Unclear problem definition;
• Poorly defined / articulated objectives (SMART);
• Lack of coherence - problems – objectives – activities –
outputs / results (LOGFRAME);
• Inconsistent bunch of WPs;
• General descriptions - poor definitions, missing concrete
indicators / measurements;
• Unrealistic objectives, activities, outputs, results (20%
increase of employment, etc.)
• Outputs and Results confused
• Limited next steps planning

11. Communicating about EUSDR
in the framework of the SEE Programme

12. We can have less application failures if we:
• communicate better!
• communicate sooner (than later)!
• communicate in a balanced manner!
= need for a pro-active approach !

13. • SEE – complex and diverse area
• SEE Programme - complex and diverse instrument
– aims to improve cohesion, stability and competitiveness of the region.
– helps to promote better integration between the Member States,
candidate and potential candidate countries and neighbouring
countries
– supports projects which are covering the whole area but also which
are aimed to develop specific sub-areas as Black Sea, Adriatic,
Aegean, Charpatian, Danubian,
– provides a suitable framework to take to a practical level the political
cooperation that has been achieved so far among the Danube
countries and to explore new opportunities to promote cooperation
among countries in the region
= complex and diverse communication !!!

14. • EUSDR: important topic – adding to what already is an
extremely interesting and varied programme
• How can the SEE Programme be involved?
• How does EUSDR reflect upon the current / the future
projects?
• What kind of input would be useful?
• What type of information is needed for a start?
• How to connect the right stakeholders and communicate
towards /with them?
• What lessons can be learnt from the SEE programme /
projects management for the Danube Strategy?

15. • SEE pro-active approach: “prepare the
ground” for the strategy :
– Awareness-building and information: raising awareness
of the Danube Strategy among the beneficiaries, potential
beneficiaries, other stakeholders.
– Identifying relevant projects, in order to show the added-
value of SEE cooperation projects for the regional
development of the Danube area.

16. Some communication challenges
• Inform about the strategy (timely, correctly);
• Provide balanced information: the SEE Programme is not
only about the Danube – on the other hand it is in a special
position, as it does cover almost the entire EUSDR area
(Germany to be included within the 20% flexibility rule);
•Integrate some elements related to the strategy in
future programme communication;
•Involve the current projects on Danube: project
results and achievements of cooperation
•Attract potential projects that are in line with the
Strategy to apply in our Programme (without
prejudicing projects on other topics);

17. The existing projects
• Highlight their added-value for the regional
development of the Danube area
• Cooperating with each-other – joint events, joint
actions for a more powerful impact / the bigger
picture

18. Some examples of planned project actions
• WANDA – River shows in ports of the participating
countries;
• NEWADA – Danube Information Services Conference
• DATOURWAY - Transnational conference: Big River
and Network building
• Donauregionen - website featuring a GIS server
Module: enables presentation of GIS data and
supports elaboration of geographic analysis

19. The future / potential projects
• Inform about the Strategy at our events (Annual
event, Lead Applicant seminars, Lead Partner
seminars etc.)
• Encourage projects related to the Strategy to apply
to our programme (in line with the characteristics of
the future calls)

20. Connecting (with) the stakeholders
• Cooperation between the programmes / projects
involved in the strategy (common events,
exchange of experience)
• Addressing relevant thematic issues in a
cooperation context and facilitating the exchange
of information

21. THANK YOU!
Lelia Rotaru
Communications Manager
South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme
Joint Technical Secretariat
E-mail: rotaru@southeast-europe.net; jts@southeast-europe.net
www.southeast-europe.net