On the 8th of February, 2012, the Conference on the topic “EU Strategy for the Danube Region. Development projects and opportunities in different sectors of Romania” took place in Bucharest. The Black Sea-Caspian Sea International Fund was represented on the conference by the coordinator of the project team, Mihai Sandu, and members of the project team Julia Akhunova, Orhan Mammadov and Liliana Coman.
The event was organized by the patronage CONFINDUSTRIA Romania, in collaboration with the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania, the Chambers of Commerce Union UNIONCAMERE, under the auspices of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Italy in Bucharest.
The Conference was attended by the representatives of governmental structures and diplomatic corpus accredited to Romania: H.E. Mr. Mario Cospito, Ambassador of Italy to Romania, Mr. Petru Filip, Vice–president of the Romanian Senate, Mrs. Luminita Odobescu, General Director of the EU Directorate General within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and many other officials.
On the 8th of December, 2010, the European Commission emitted the project titled “EU Strategy for the Danube Region” that was approved in 2011 by the member countries and the European Council. The Danube Strategy is a platform encouraging partnerships between local and regional authorities, also private sector and non-governmental organizations, through creating development projects in the Danube region. The main objectives of the Strategy are:
• To provide and support economic, social and cultural development of the States and the regions in the Danube basin, in accordance with the environmental norms;
• To reduce the differences between the richest and the poorest regions in accordance with the objectives of the EU Cohesion Policy;
• To maximize the absorption of the EU funds and attraction of the new funding for the Danube region.
During the Conference, the framework agreement on partnership between CONFINDUSTRIA Romania, the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been concluded. That can be considered the first and fundamental step forward of Romania within the EU Platform on the Danube region.