Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
6. Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border
Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border own bilateral relations. After reaching a political agreement they could start drawing up an actual agreement. The language of the talks was English everywhere, which made common work more efficient. What is more, the original basic document was also in English and it was translated into both Hungarian and Slovak. As for its content, the agreement corresponds to any other document of the Union. The ambition was to acquire as much money as possible through grant applications in the Hungary-Slovakia-Ukraine INTERREG III A-programme. After this, on the basis of the priorities of the operative programme, experts compiled a list of 74 project proposals within 3-4 months after mutual checking. The prepared package of project proposals circulated twice in different venues in the area of the four counties. Groups of two people were in charge everywhere. The package was the subject of discussion in the office departments of the particular local governments, it was revised and, at last, its final version was drawn up in Miskolc. They compiled a table including the participating counties, project managers, the budget of the project, the counties’ own contributions, the amounts of the money managed, etc. The completed plan was again discussed and approved by the presidents. In the course of the discussions, the presidents set up an order of priority, which was just slightly different from the proposals of experts. The preparatory stage was successful. In the first round, 143 out of 477 applications were incomplete, but 67 won funding. Hungary won 40, Slovakia 27 and Ukraine 9 tenders, together with the other two countries. In the first round, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County won 46.3% of the amount allocated for Hungary, and 58.6% in the second. To take part in the cooperation programme of 2007-2013, the participating parties have to work out a new strategy. It is worth involving only the nearby counties in the work and it is pointless to involve several other partners. The professional secretariat is only in contact with the leading project manager. The political tension between the right-wing county local governments and the left-wing Hungarian government has led to the chances of participation of county local governments being narrowed, because the central government withdrew the local governments’ contributions necessary for the submission of applications. Cooperation between the institutions has also narrowed down, because they can only implement investments with money from grants. It is hard to prove cross-border influence, which may be an obstacle for investments. The investments with cross-border influence require much higher sums of money. It creates a further difficulty that, even if the investment 174
