The presentation of the general framework and the main axes of the Regional Action Plan of the considered policy tool of the Epicah transnational project, its finalization and approval, were the dominant topics of the work agenda of 6th Working Meeting of the Network of Stakeholders of the Region of Western Macedonia, which took place on Thursday 9 May 2019 and time 09.30 a.m. at the headquarters of the Regional Development Fund of Western Macedonia.
The Regional Action Plan aims to improve and utilize the policy tool of the Interreg Europe program which is based on the Environment, Culture and Tourism sectors. It is the “bridge” connecting the A’ phase of the implementation of the Epicah project with that of the B’ phase and includes all the actions to be implemented as they were selected and prescribed during the meetings of the Involved Parties which took place in all the respective Regions of the project’s Partners. In addition, the Study Visits (study visits) and the Thematic Seminars that have been held to date in the Regions of its partners involved in the project, namely in Greece (Kastoria & Prespes), Italy (Eboli), Hungary (Tokai), the Czech Republic (Pilsen), Spain (Toro-Thamora) and Portugal, were included.
The implementation of the actions of the business plan in the Region of Western Macedonia during the 2nd phase of the Epicah project, is going to strengthen and further highlight the applied policy tools and the good practices of corresponding successful actions that were implemented in cross-border areas of the project and which were based on the management, protection and promotion of their natural and cultural heritage, creating measurable results of increasing their tourist traffic.
In the second part of the meeting, the managers of the Regional Fund of Western Macedonia presented to the representatives of the parties involved the good practices, the results and the conclusions of the Thematic Seminar of the Epicah project that took place in Pilsen, Czech Republic last March and whose work they watched closely. The representatives of the involved bodies proceeded to exchange opinions and evaluate the content of the thematic seminar.
The work of the meeting was concluded with the positions of the participants regarding the regional event to be organized 2nd semester of 2019 in Western Macedonia and in which the final Action Plan of the Epicah project for the Region of Western Macedonia will be presented.
* The local network of stakeholders of the Epicah project is made up of representatives of agencies of the Region of Western Macedonia, who are active in the fields of culture, environment, tourism and regional development.
