Attractice Danube Project - territorial attractiveness analysis of the Danube region.

Abstract

Following integrative approach of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) for achieving balanced and sustainable territorial development in Europe, European Union (EU) has launched the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion (ESPON) programme to research and identify integrative territorial evidence models for the different EU development policies monitoring and evaluation. Among the others, territorial evidence model for a territorial attractiveness (TA) monitoring was developed as result of the ESPON's ATTREG project, since TA has been recognized by the different EU policies as one of those complex territorial qualities important for the European competitiveness and territorial cohesion. Defined as a set of territorial capitals and assets with capacities to retain existing and attract new resources, policy-supported TA is able to create or improve territorial identity - i.e. competitive advantage - needed for reaching inclusive, smart and sustainable development goals on different levels within EU and its cross-border regions. Thus, targeting the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) goals, and relying on the INTERREG Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) instrument, the Improving Capacities for Enhancing Territorial Attractiveness of the Danube Region (Attractive Danube) project has been launched in 2017 with the aim to build a TA monitoring system in the Danube Region. This system should support both national TA policy priorities identification and monitoring, as well as transnational TA policies coordination among the 11 partner-countries (including Austria) in the Danube macroregion. The purpose of this paper is to present the initial findings of TA analysis for the Danube Region, using the results achieved during the first year of the Attractive Danube project implementation. The project objectives and activities in 2017 included: 1) data collection for the selected TA indicators, and 2) building national and transnational TA monitoring platforms, namely 11 national TAMPs and transnational CO TAMP. The focus of this paper is on the 22 common TA indicators analysis based on their values collected by the project partners for period 2008-2016. In order for the TA disparities and trends to be identified and, thus, needed TA policy improvements to be defined, methodology applied for this TA indicator analysis was compiled using the approaches elaborated and modelled by the other ESPON projects. As an initial result, it is found that positive TA cohesion trend was prevailing one and that there was no common TA indicator with strong territorial disparity trend in period 2008-2016. Therefore, in this paper, after the Attractive Danube project's aim and objectives description, the TA as development concept is presented. Then, methodological approaches to the TA indicators data collection and analysis are defined. Finally, the main results and initial findings of the TA indicators analysis for the Danube Region are presented and interpreted, and general conclusions on possible TA policy improvements towards territorial cohesion and sustainability in future in this macroregion are made.