8th EUSAIR Governing Board meeting

Members of EUSAIR Governing Board – appointed National Coordinators, Pillar Coordinators, European Commission and other institutions taking an important role in the region gathered to discuss common future development of eight countries participating in the strategy. Starting with the Programme of Montenegrin Presidency of EU Strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region with priorities and indicative calendar for the period 1 June 2018 – 31 May 2019 and with the main focus on Discussion Paper: Follow-up actions in response to the request from EUSAIR Ministers under Paragraph 6 of the Catania ministerial Declaration.

Mentioned paragraph namely presents a great opportunity for EUSAIR to make a breakthrough. It recognises the necessity to include macro-regional priorities – jointly agreed by the eight countries – in the ESIF and IPA 2021-2027 planning and programming documents. This requires upgrading the level of coordination among countries, therefore members of EUSAIR Governing Board touched concrete course of action in the next few months.

Additional to that a few related side events were organised:

– OECD Seminar on Strengthening National Co-ordination Mechanisms for EUSAIR based on a close work of OECD with the eight respective countries and its Synthesis Report: Multi-level Governance and Cross-Sector Practices Supporting the European Union Macro-Regional Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region.

– Supporting structure Facility Point of the EUSAIR governance had also a Steering Group meeting regarding its own assignments and next steps in the future.

– EUSAIR Pillar Coordinators on the other hand held a Technical meeting and dealt with developments of EUSAIR contents, as well as of their cross-pillar connections.