The 8th Annual Forum of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region took place on the 27 and 28th of June in Bucharest, Romania. The forum took place under the motto: ‘Building cohesion for a shared prosperity in the Danube Region’.

The event was organized in the context of the Romanian Presidency of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (SUERD) and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the European Commission and the Transnational Danube Program. The forum represented a very important event for the SUERD presidency, promoting connectivity, mobility and competitiveness by stimulating the development of business, transport, digitization and tourism support structures.

The forum was attended by over 1,000 participants, including senior European officials, dignitaries from the countries of SUERD and representatives of the European institutions, national coordinators and SUERD priority areas, central public authorities with responsibilities in implementing the objectives of the SUERD Priority Areas, Inter-ministerial work SUERD and Consultative Council, representatives of local public authorities, academics and business, civil society, as well as representatives of Parliament and Presidential Administration, highlighting Romania's efforts to promote macro-regional strategies at European level, as well as promoting EUSDR at the regional, national and local level to ensure the territorial and socio-economic cohesion of the participating states.

The eighth edition of the Annual Forum of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region took place in Bucharest, being the most important event of the Romanian Presidential Presidency at EUSDR and the last major event under the aegis of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union mandate, ending 30 June 2019. Minister for European Affairs, George Ciamba stated: “At the end of this mandate, I am convinced that Romania has strengthened its profile in Europe, becoming a stronger, more credible, and more relevant voice. I firmly believe that this road will continue after the Presidency because we have the institutional and political maturity required to successfully carry out any other major national project.”

To this end, 8 calls for projects devoted to SUERD (with a total allocation of approximately € 438 million) have been launched, 201 projects (worth around € 721 million requested) have been submitted and 33 contracts have been signed (in the requested amount of about 194 million euro). At the same time, the Danube Transnational Program is one of the main instruments that financially supports both the objectives of the strategy and its governance, financing the work of the Priority Area Coordinators and the Secretariat. With the same coverage as the Strategy, all projects funded by this program, both ordinary and seed money facility, are relevant to SUERD.