“Environmental protection facilitates permanent, balanced development”, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Minister of State for Environmental Affairs, Agricultural Development and Hungaricums said on Tuesday in Budapest at an international conference held on the sidelines of the 6th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) held in the Hungarian capital on 18-19 October.
Zsolt V. Németh highlighted the fact that the Danube Strategy’s environmental protection pillar includes three main areas: protecting water quality, reducing environmental risks, and biodiversity. It is a misunderstanding to interpret this cooperation as being about the Danube, the river, because it is aimed at increasing cooperation with regard to a whole region, he said.
The Minister of State pointed out that the Danube region includes the Danube’s water catchment areas, but in addition it also includes areas that are not closely connected to the region from a hydrographic perspective but from a political and economic viewpoint. It is no accident that the programme of the seminar is mainly devoted to water and water management, he said.
“Managing rivers, flood protection and providing access to water is is already a central issue. The importance of water is expected to increase further as a result of the negative effects of climate change”, Mr. Németh stated. “Experience shows that areas and countries with differing capabilities and the resulting varied knowledge can only achieve significant results through solidarity and cooperation. Today, it is precisely this diversity that provides the region’s strength”, he said, adding that according to expectations, the conference is also expected to contribute to the further reinforcement of relations within the region.
One of the outstanding results of the Hungarian EU Presidency was that in June of 2011 Europe’s heads of state and government gave their final authorisation to launching the European Union’s second macro-regional development plan. The Danube Strategy, which involves a total of 14 countries, including 9 EU member states (Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) and five from outside the EU (Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine), coordinated development policy in 11 specific areas in the interests of improving links, facilitating environmental protection and increasing prosperity. Six years after the Strategy was launched, the development of its main directions is once again in Hungary’s hands, in view of the fact that Hungary is the current President of the cooperation and is hosting the Annual Forum.
(Ministry of Agriculture Press Office)
