Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
6. Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border
The organizational forms of cooperation The home pages of 68 (50%) out of 136 towns in Slovakia refer to their twin-town relations (Tables 41 and 42). Most relations were developed between the towns of neighbouring countries, first of all with the Czech people. The first among non-neighbouring countries is Germany, and, of the European countries that are not member states of the EU, Slovak towns established the most relations with Serbia. The first among continents other than Europe is the United States. The motivation for developing relations is rather manifold. The representation of Slovak national interests plays an important role, because all the relations are based on some Slovak national reference. This mostly means people of Slovak ethnicity living in the settlement in question. Besides, there are also some other practical reasons, such as obtaining experience in urban development. As can be seen from the table, apart from the extremely high number of traditional Czech relations, the relations developed by the particular counties are mostly influenced by the neighbouring country. The data concerning the counties in the neighbourhood of the Hungarian border are also proof of this: the relations with Hungarian towns are decisive. When developing cooperation they take geographical distance into consideration, but national and cultural aspects are often much more important. This is the reason why all the towns in Romania with which the towns in Slovakia with a Hungarian ethnic majority develop relations are towns in Transylvania with a Hungarian ethnic majority. Similarly, towns in Slovakia with a Slovak ethnic majority try to find towns in Hungary and Serbia that are mostly inhabited by Slovak people. The same independence is typical of the relations between the institutions as of municipality relations. The individual institutions decide in their own sphere of authority whether they would like to cooperate with other institutions or not, and the development of relations depends on the intentions of the two parties. The most frequent form of cooperation is between schools and cultural communities, the meetings of choirs, theatres and sports clubs, or when students take part in study competitions. Grants help to finance the organization of such events. 6. 3. 2 Relations of euroregions Euroregional cooperation looks back on a 50-year-long tradition in Europe. Such activities are very important in present-day borderless Europe, because, with this organizational form, the people living in bor-161
