The Montenegrin Pan-European Union received the project “Visegrad Group supports Montenegro and Serbia in preparation for the EU Regional Policy”. The project was financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The Fund’s mission is to promote ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
The project focuses on the exchange of experiences, transfer of knowledge and recommendations for further regional economic integration through the Regional Development of the WB6. The EU’s regional policy covers financial support to countries and regions for the implementation of projects whose objective is to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion, with a focus on (1) increasing economic and social cohesion by reducing gaps between the EU regions; (2) increasing regional competitiveness with the goal of ensuring the Union’s global competitiveness; and (3) European territorial cooperation aimed at promoting cooperation between EU regions. Since 2001, less developed eastern EU regions have been catching up with the rest of the EU, leading to a substantial reduction in GDP/pc gap. Their high growth rates have been fuelled by structural transformation, notably a shift of employment out of agriculture and into higher value-added sectors. Convergence has been driven by high growth in less developed regions (where V4 experiences are extremely valuable for the Western Balkans, i.e. Montenegro and Serbia, well advanced in the EU accession talks), but their low-cost advantages and returns on huge infrastructure investment may gradually shrink over time (sharing experiences and knowledge transfer of models how to avoid so-called “middle-income trap”). Montenegro and Serbia are negotiating these issues in chapter 22 – EU regional policy and coordination of structural funds and need additional education and experience sharing to find innovative solutions for sustainable regional and local economic development. The project output (research, surveys in ME, workshops, and lectures) will contribute to achieving overall and specific project objectives.
Project-specific results are:
- New audiences reached on workshop and conference
- E-book developed and the book published/distributed
- Visibility of project results enhanced via social media
- Dialogue between the business sector, government, local community, academia, and NGOs fostered
- Knowledge transfer and experience sharing from V4 to WB/Montenegro and Serbia achieved
- Promotion of joint V4 R&D projects in the WB region increased
This project will be implemented with the support of partners from four VISEGRAD countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and partners from Serbia and Montenegro, namely:
- Union of the Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in C/E Europe, from Budapest, Hungary. The website of the partner is http://schuman-institute.eu/
- Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), from Warsaw, Poland. The website of the partner is https://www.case-research.eu/en
- Institute for Politics and Society (IPS), from Prague, Czechia. The website of the partner is https://www.politikaspolecnost.cz/en/front-page/
- MESA10, from Bratislava, Slovakia. The website of the partner is https://www.mesa10.org/
- Center for Foreign Policy (CFP), from Beograd, Serbia. The website of the partner is https://cfp.org.rs/
The project coordinator is the president of the Montenegrin Pan-European Union, prof. dr. Gordana Đurović.
Contact of the project coordinator:
e-mail: [email protected]
mobile phone: +382 69 070 452