Analysis on Central Europe and the Danube Strategy : Is Central Europe restorable under the framework of the EU strategy for the Danube Region?

Absztrakt (kivonat)

At the end of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (ESDR or Danube Strategy) was adopted. According to the Hungarian standpoint the most significant outcome of the Strategy will be the reconstruction of Central Europe. The aim of the paper is to analyze the relevance of the statement. First, historic concepts of Central Europe and regional initiatives are examined to clarify to which Central Europe refers and find out the main hindrances of the cooperation within the region. Then the ESDR is dealt with by highlighting the importance of the river, the antecedents of the Strategy, as well as, its innovative measures. Afterwards, the potentials and the obstacles will are compared to each other. Based on the researches, although many concepts and examples exist in the literature aiming at a Central European cooperation, none of them proved to be effective in terms of economic or political enforcement of the Region. By examining the content and the structure of the ESDR, it has some common elements with the previous concepts, regarding its territorial coverage or its economic aims. However, it is consisted of several novel measures to eliminate the failure of the Strategy. Both the Strategy and the Region have many potentials as well as disadvantages, therefore each issue requires harmonization and alignment with each other and with other policies. The expectations emphasizing that the Danube Strategy will reconstruct Central Europe are based on the correlation between the Danube Region and Central Europe. Additionally, it is proven that the notion of Central Europe is flexible enough to adapt the actual needs. Even though Central Europe has never existed as such, it is possible to build it up by the Strategy through the enforcement of cooperation among the peoples and exploiting the potentials of the Region.