Budapest, the capital of the Danube
12, March 2010
Budapest is ready to assume a leading role in developing and implementing an efficient Danube Strategy, which would allow turning the capital of Hungary into a modern center of the South-Eastern European Region. Besides improving the competitiveness of the agglomeration (3.5-4 million people), the project would benefit also the rest of the country and the whole region.
Therefore Budapest sees the Danube Region as a common economic area, and wishes to assume a leading role with the support of the international community and the Hungarian government to create the European Danube Region. In the 2014 to 2020 funding period, this region, as the natural center of the Danube region, might receive extensive support from the European Union.
In June 2009 the European Council called upon the European Commission to develop, by the end of 2010, a European Union Strategy for the Danube region to improve cooperation in the countries situated along the Danube and help increase the momentum of economic and social development of the region. The strategy would consider the countries along the Danube and in the Danube Basin as one single transnational European support area to help use their economic, social, ecological and cultural synergies and potential.
