City Cooperation II

Deepening of a successful tripartite partnership: The City Cooperation project has helped in the period 2007-13, to establish a partnership of 24 cities (AT-SI-HU) and implement exemplary pilot and cooperation activities. Based on this experience the participating 8 Austrian, 9 Slovene (and 7 Hungarian) cities intend to still significantly deepen the initiative and focus on two very current joint challenges characteristic for the region.

In order to highlight the identification with the cooperation in the cities at a political, administrative, economic and touristic level even more, Austrian cities have founded their own registered association as a carrier, which bundles all activities and is the basis for a trilateral funding body as a key project result. The greater project goal is analogue to the program specific target – raising the level of cross-border cooperation between municipalities – strengthening the cities and their players in the network as the main carrier of a polycentric and growth-oriented development of the cross-border region of Slovenia-Hungary-Austria by

• coordination and development of the positioning of the individual network partners as individually profiled and transregional perceptible lighthouses of the region as well as the cooperation in its entirety
• joint development and implementation of innovative and site-related purchasing power systems as a strategy for coping with the current challenges such as the digital transformation. 

The cities of the polycentric structured border region target on solutions which increase the overall competitiveness of enterprises and the region through a linking-up of new solutions.