Spindelegger: “Implementation of the Danube Strategy gets off to a good start”
Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor attends kick-off event for the
EU Strategy for the Danube Region
Vienna, 4 July 2011 – Austria has good reason to be pleased: the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, which was jointly initiated by Austria and Romania, was adopted ten days ago at the summit of heads of state and government following two years of intensive preparations. “All the formal steps have thus been taken, and the implementation stage can now get under way. From the very beginning, Austria has involved the national level, but above all the regional and local levels, in elaborating the EU Strategy for the Danube Region,” said Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger at the kick-off event held at the Academy of Sciences.
In his speech Spindelegger appealed to the more than 200 participants from Austria and abroad, pointing out that the Strategy would continue to require the concerted support of all those concerned in the future. Organised jointly by the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, the event was mainly devoted to the implementation perspective and to questions relating to the Strategy’s added value, in particular for Austria.
The focus was on the three priority areas for which Austrian institutions have assumed coordination tasks: investments in people and skills, improved institutional capacity and cooperation, and inland waterways. “All countries bordering the Danube – regardless whether or not they are members of the EU – want to join forces and share a convergent picture of a common future,” continued Spindelegger. According to the Foreign Minister it was particularly important that the major pillars of the Strategy – transport, energy and the environment – placed the emphasis on sustainability.
In the course of the conference Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger also met with his Romanian colleague, Teodor Baconschi. Their talks focused on the question of further political support for the Strategy for the Danube Region.
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