The Year of the Presidency of Ukraine in the EU Strategy for the Danube Region: recap
In 2022, Ukraine became the first non-EU country to preside over the Danube Region Strategy. It is symbolic that Ukraine completed the Presidency already in the status of a candidate for EU membership.
Many ambitious plans for this year were interrupted by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by russia. Even despite the ongoing war, we continued to fulfill our obligations as the presiding country.
Ukraine officially began presiding over the EUSDR in November 2021. Then there was a presentation of the Ukrainian Presidency programme with the participation of representatives of the Government of Ukraine, the EUSDR and the expert community. Find out more via this link. 
In June, the 10th conference of stakeholders of PA 9 EUSDR "Youth in a time of crisis: development of flexible education, training and labor market systems in the Danube region" took place. The participants talked about the challenges and future priorities of an effective policy in the field of education, training and the labor market and related projects. The key emphasis was on supporting the youth of the Danube region in the context of the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Read the post-release of the event here. During the Embedding Week, which took place in July, representatives of the European Commission, the Ukrainian Presidency, Priority Areas and countries participating in the Strategy discussed the main aspects of mutual coordination of financial instruments, examples of existing projects in the Danube region and priority areas of the Strategy. Read more. On September 15-16, the international conference "Education, retraining and inclusion: transformation during the crisis" took place. The event brought together representatives of the Ukrainian government, local self-government bodies, the educational community, the public sector and international partners. The participants discussed the issues of inclusion in the field of education and the labor market, and also considered the main problems of the transformation of vocational education during the war. Find more details here. 
The final and biggest event of the Presidency was the 11th Annual EUSDR Forum, which took place on October 19-20 under the slogan "Sustainable and secure Danube region", and was aimed at strengthening the cooperation of all 14 participating countries of the Strategy in countering the growing challenges and threats caused by the military aggression of the Russian Federation, the energy crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The event gathered more than 50 speakers, 200 participants offline in Kosice (Slovakia) and more than 1,500 online and became a truly unique experience for the Danube region. The forum was organized with the support of Ukrainian Institute for International Politics and Hanns Seidel Stiftung Ukraine. Recording can be found here. 
Slovenia holds the EUSDR Presidency after Ukraine. In the coming year we will continue cooperation and implementation of key priorities in the Trio format 
, as well as working within the framework of Priority Areas.