The national authorities in charge of approving the EGTCs met for the fourth time in Budapest on 16 and 17 April, hosted by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and by the Central European Initiative.

"Hungary prides itself on being one of the experienced Member States with the highest number of EGTCs established and operating with Hungarian partners", said Magyar Levente, Secretary of State for Economic Diplomacy.

The objective of the meeting was to help the national authorities in charge of the EGTCs to coordinate their efforts and procedures, in line with the inter-institutional statement added to the Regulation (EU) 1302/2013 in which the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agree "to undertake appropriate actions of coordination and communication among national authorities and between authorities of different Member States in order to ensure clear, efficient and transparent procedures of authorisation of new EGTCs within the time limits fixed."

Among the speakers, Támás Deutsch MEP, representatives of the European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions, and delegates from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Poland, Spain, France and Moldova. The potential of the EGTCs was discussed with representatives of the secretariat of the transnational programme Danube, the programmes Interreg Europe and Interreg A Germany-Netherlands, the European Investments Bank and the CESCI-Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives. The EGTCs Euroregion Pyrenées-Méditerranée, Europaregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino, Euro-GO and Ister-Granum also presented their experience.