Hidrológiai Közlöny, 2017 (97. évfolyam)
2017 / 3. szám - TRANSNATIONAL EFFORTS - Kocsis-Kupper Zsuzsanna: Financing possibilities for water projects in the Danube region in 2017
7 Zsuzsanna Kocsis-Kupper: Financing possibilities for water projects in the Danube region in 2017 ership. Steering Groups members must be active in identifying the funding sources and describing the added value of the projects to the Managing Authorities (MA) in their respective countries. o When identifying priority projects, the Managing Authorities should be involved to minimise the risk of developing projects, which are not suitable for the identified programmes. A recent study (Metis 2017) examining embedding macro-regional strategies stressed that macro-regional strategies do not have a dedicated budset of their own, which makes their implementation relying on a mobilisation offunding from other relevant sources (EU national, regional, private, etc.) and on a well-coordinated use of available funding streams at different levels. It also pointed that all ESIF programmes (national / regional, ETC) have in most cases not specifically earmarked (ring- fenced) budgets for macro-regional strategies, but one third of the 23 examined EU funding programmes have “earmarked” often substantial amounts of their EU contribution for supporting an implementation of the EUSDR. The study provided many recommendations to policymakers to improve alignment further, notably advised the European Commission to realise an EU-wide stock-taking of experiences made by different types of EU funding programmes (ESIF, IPA, ENI, EU-wide programmes) with an embedding of and alignment with macro-regional strategies and called for a Communication dedicated to this matter to provide clear guidance to programmes on how to achieve a more systematic embedding and alignment in the time after 2020 (Recommendation XV in Metis 2017). ACTIVITIES OF EUSDR PRIORITY AREA WATER QUALITY (PA4) AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS (PA5) RELATED TO ALIGNMENT OF FUNDING Priority Areas Water Quality (PA4) and Environmental Risks (PA5) of the EUSDR focus on the topic of water from different aspects: PA4 from the aspect of quality, while PA5 from the aspect of risks and both have their own targets, dedicated Action Plan and Roadmap. EUSDR PA4 is co-coordinated by Hungary and Slovakia, while PA5 is co-coordinated by Hungary and Romania. Both priority areas facilitate the alignment of funding in the frame of the above-mentioned circumstances of the Danube Strategy and both coordination teams adopted their alignment of funding document already in 2014. Both EUSDR PA4 and PA5 contributes to facilitate the alignment of funding in a structured and systematic way and made effective actions to embed the priority interventions to the EU programs of the “2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework”. The Hungarian coordination teams of the referred priority areas organised Stakeholder Conferences, especially for water projects in November 2015 and in the frame of the Budapest Water Summit in 2016; as well as held general financing conferences in March 2015 and in May 2017. In all stakeholder events, relevant financing programmes were demonstrated/represented to wide range of interested stakeholders and the events also provided a platform for stakeholders for cooperation and networking for the sake of establishing future consortiums. In practical terms, nearly 20 Danube basin water related projects and ideas were introduced in the frame of the high-level working group of the Water Quality Priority Area (Steering Group (SG) meetings) between the years of 2013-2017. Projects were introduced to the SG, assisted to be set up or selected for different funding instruments from general EU funding possibilities to specific EUSDR funding (Danube Region Project Funds START and TAF, or to the Danube Strategic Project Fund (DSPF). The EUSDR water related PA coordination teams regularly inform their stakeholders of the different finding possibilities. The most important EU programmes for water- specific needs are listed in the following chapter. FINANCING WATER NEEDS IN THE EU There are no specific programmes financing exclusively water needs in the EU. However, several funding possibilities exist that could be appropriate to finance different water- related projects. One needs to distinguish whether to search in sector-specific programmes or consider funding within different decentralized funding programmes via regional or national channels. (Most possibilities exist under decentralized management funds and to be found in different operative programmes of a given country, therefore, as country-specific, these are not detailed in the present document.) Territorial cooperation The European territorial cooperation scheme helps regions across Europe to work together to address shared problems. Regional Policy is delivered through three main funds: the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund (CF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). Together with the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), they make up the European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds. The ESIFs are the European Union’s main investment policy tool, € 351.8 billion — almost a third of the total EU budget - has been set aside for Cohesion Policy for 2014-2020. The ESIFs contribute to the Investment Plan for Europe and complement the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) in several ways: by leveraging public and private investment, supporting structural reforms, and improving access to funding. The European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) contains: cross-border (Interreg A), transnational (Interreg B) and interregional (Interreg C) programmes, many of which are very effective tools for EISDR stakeholders to obtain water-related funding. Below please find the programmes that are most relevant for EUSDR stakeholders, financing water needs in the Danube region. There are several cross-border cooperation (CBC) programmes in 2014-2020 that promote cooperation between EU countries and neighbourhood countries sharing a land border or sea crossing. All CBC programmes are
