National
Development Agency

The significance of the EU programme designed to reinforce the social and economic ties of regions and communities in the Hungarian-Slovak border region is well demonstrated by how the applicants of the 7 Hungarian counties and the capital and the 5 Slovak districts participating in the programme over the 2007-2013 period are eligible to receive a share of the 195 million Euro budget of the programme (equivalent to over 50 billion HUF) mostly ensured by EU funding for projects to be implemented within the framework of Hungarian-Slovak partnership.   

Regions situated in the Hungarian-Slovak border region are largely struggling with problems that are similar in many regards. The transport bottlenecks in the region which have still not been resolved, the low number of Hungarian-Slovak business contacts and low level of cooperation between the labour market and universities make it difficult to improve the region’s competitiveness. The undiscovered tourism potentials of the region also represent serious opportunities for tourism; however, joint tourism packages and joint promotion for exploiting these are not available at present. Cooperation between the two countries in the domain of nature protection would be just as important, on the one hand, in order to manage protected areas and on the other hand to eliminate damages caused by heavy industry.      

The Hungary-Slovakia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme – as a continuation of the INTERREG Programme announced earlier and running during the 2007-2013-period – grants European Union funding for cooperation to be launched in the above-listed areas. Győr-Moson-Sopron County, Komárom-Esztergom County, Nógrád County, Heves County, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County and Pest County, as well as Budapest will be participating in the Programme on the Hungarian side; whilst the Slovak districts of Bratislava, Trnava, Nitra, Banska Bystrica and Kosice will be participating in the Programme on the Slovak side. Applications may, among others, be submitted in the following areas within the framework of the Programme: cross-border business cooperation; R+D and innovation cooperation; joint tourism projects; healthcare and risk prevention; development of partnership, programme and project management capacities; joint utilization and development of human resources; cross-border environmental and nature protection projects; small-scale transport infrastructure developments, as well as IT developments.  

The first call for applications of the Hungary-Slovakia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme was announced on 15 October and closes in the middle of December. Funding will be primarily made available for supporting Hungarian-Slovak cooperation efforts implemented in the field of sustainable economic development, tourism, human resource development, education and cultural cooperation, environmental protection and infrastructure development. Participants of the conference held on Thursday in Budapest had the opportunity to gather first hand information on, among others, the objectives of the calls, as well as their respective schedule and rules of procedure.   

For further information on the programme visit the website of the National Development Agency or log onto www.husk-cbc.eu.