The 6th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region took place on 18-19th October in Budapest. The event was jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, the European Commission and the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP). The Annual Forum offered the platform to discuss about the current state as well as the future course of the Strategy with a focus on some of the most urgent topics of the Danube region like energy security, infrastructure development, environmentally friendly transportation and financing possibilities.

The project ENERGY BARGE was presented by Thies Fellenberg during the workshop “Sustainable energy” as part of the DTP Capitalisation Strategy. The aim of the DTP Capitalisation Strategy is to encourage the links between projects and other stakeholders working on similar topics, for which those projects were compiled under so-called Thematic Poles. ENERGY BARGE is part of Thematic Pole 8 – Sustainable Energy. The projects shall highly draw on the results of other projects and thus create higher leverage effects to increase their visibility and strengthen thematic networks in the Danube area and beyond.

Pál Ságvári from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary moderated the workshop, which was attended by approx. 30 participants. The DTP funded projects 3Smart (smart grids) and DARLINGe (geothermal energy) were presented by the respective coordinators besides the project ENERGY BARGE. Thus the topics of the three projects cover a broad range from the field of renewable energies. Gaps on topics were addressed and discussed and potentials for synergy were identified.

As DARLINGe and ENERGY BARGE both address the heating sector, it is envisaged to reach out to joint stakeholders in the further course of the projects to better connect the different renewable energy sources on local and regional level. In the first place it was agreed that Mario Vasak, lead partner of the project 3Smart, will attend the next ENERGY BARGE workshop in Zagreb on 18th January 2018 and present the project to the consortium and external stakeholders.