Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
6. Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border
Actors of administration bank of the river is also interested in utilizing the possibilities of tourism. The members of the alliance also thought of the possibility of jointly submitting grant applications. In the frame of the Váh-Dunaj Euroregion, the alliance participated in four PHARE grant programs and they have already submitted a successful application to the Visegrád Fund. Most funding is for planning further development for tourism purposes and different ways of involving the other bank of the Danube in the tourist industry. One of the best examples for this is the Europe Village, which is a part of the plans of Búč and Neszmély and which would be built in the territories of the two villages. It would be an open-air village museum where the traditional village architecture of the member states of the Union would be displayed. Since the exhibition is only complete if tourists visit both sides, it seems to be a good solution for stimulating tourism on the other bank, too. Simultaneous possibilities can also develop relations between two settlements. The thermal water resources that can be found on both sides of the Danube are exploited in similar ways. The only difference is that Hungarian spas had the opportunity to implement large-scale development in the frame of the Széchenyi Plan between 1998 and 2002, whereas the local governments that operate thermal baths in Slovakia have not had such opportunities so far. Each of the small Slovak settlements with a thermal bath can join the more interesting programmes of the big cities on the other bank (e.g. Veľký Meder and Győr, Štúrovo and Esztergom), but this phenomenon also typically works the other way round, like in case of North Komárno and South Komárom. The spas that can be found very close to each other, but on the two banks of the Danube, can complement each other because in most cases visitors of a spa based on medicinal tourism can also find an aqua park in the neighbourhood. Examining local governments and municipality institutions, it turns out that legal limitations create a larger obstacle for them than for economic life. However, with a lot of small, rather representative kind of relations, they have already expressed their intentions of cooperation. The cooperation between such large systems takes up more time and requires agreement, mutual adoption and amendments of laws, decrees and procedural methods. Meanwhile, the formerly frozen relations have been revived along the borders. Traffic and the exchange of goods have improved the life of the people living in the borderland. We can witness very different ways of living in the different sections of the border. While 177
