Koprivnica Križevci County became a member of the Pannon EGTC

In accordance with the Countys Assembly Decision of September 26th 2017. by which is determined the accession of Koprivnica Križevci County to Pannon European Grouping of  Territorial Cooperation (Pannon EGTC), the County on February 6th 2018. formally became a member of this grouping.

        Accession was held at the Pannon EGTC Assembly in Osijek, when besides our County  eight other units of local and regional self-government joined the membership: Osijek Baranja County, Međimurje County, town Prelog and town Mursko Središće from Croatia and Tolna County, town Barcs and local self-governments Őrtilos and Zákány from Hungary. Accessing                        acts on behalf of Koprivnica Križevci County were signed by the Deputy County prefect Darko Sobota.

With new accessing, the organization has 66 members from the area of Pannonian basin from Hungary (Counties Baranja, Tolna, Somogy, Zala), Slovenia (Prekmurje and Podravje) and Croatia (Osjek Baranja, Virovitica Podravina, Koprivnica Križevci and Međimurje).

         On the Assembly was, among other, defined a work plan for the future period, where the central place takes candidating of projects on the second call of the cross-border cooperation program Interreg V-A Hungary Croatia 2014.-2020., in which Pannon can participate as an independent partner. It is considered applying of projects with goal to improve the capacity of Pannon EGTC in order to develop and implement the Regional Development Strategy and Action Plan of the Drava Basin, with a planned budget of about 950 thousand Euros.

         In addition to the Assemblys session, the Pannon EGTC was with the support of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Affairs on February 5th organized a conference on possibilities of cooperation in Hungarian-Croatian regional development. With  representatives of the Counties and of local self-government units, the conference was attended by state secretaries of Croatian and Hungarian ministries responsible for European funds, regional development, trade and foreign policy, representatives of state agencies and others. Within the conference, two round tables were organized: on the possibilities of economic, cultural and tourist cooperation in Podravina, and the possibilities of cross-border traffic.

On the round table on traffic participated Deputy County prefect Darko Sobota, who outlined the main priorities and problems of traffic for the area of Koprivnica Križevci County and the wider region. On this roundtable were presented plans for investment in the construction of the hungarian M6 highway and the motorway M60 till the croatian border, which will be connection to the A5 highway in Baranja as well as the future motorway A13 at the border crossing Barcs (Podravina ipsilon) and the opening of new border crossings between Croatia and Hungary.

Members of Pannon are active applicants on cross-border programs of cooperation, so in the context of cooperation for the future call of Interreg V-A Hungary Croatia, participants had the opportunity to negotiate joint project co-operation with potential partners. According to that Deputy County prefect Darko Sobota and director of PORA Melita Birčić talked about future project cooperation with representatives of hungarian municipalities and towns.

European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTS) have been established for easier cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation between member states or their regional and local authorities, and at the area of European Union operates 68 of such groupings.