Baranya Megye, Hungary

The Republic of Croatia and Republic of Hungary's cross-border cooperation (CBC) has a long and rich tradition. The territories connected by geographic, historical, economic, cultural and other components and directed toward mutual cooperation have maintained intensive contacts during a considerable period of their common history and in the same national community for centuries. In recent times, while continuing the cooperation between the former Slavonia District and Baranya County, the cities of Osijek and Pécs have established mutual cooperation in 1967, crowned by their twinning in 1973.

This cooperation was also followed by a regional one, formulated in the Cooperation Agreement between the then Osijek-seated Municipalities' Association (of the Slavonia region) and Baranya County. The results produced in municipal and regional cooperation have been confirmed even in the most unpropitious times, in the time of the Homeland War, when Baranya County homed numerous expatriates from this portion of Croatia escaped from war destruction, rendering them human and material assistance in the war-problem resolution. The historically based CBC between Osijek-Baranja County and Baranya County from the Republic of Hungary was also formally designed in 1995 by the agency of a Cooperation Agreement. The direction of these territories toward mutual cooperation has also brought forth an initiative to establish the first Euroregion in this area, encompassing, in addition to these two counties, the region of northeastern Bosnia as well. Nevertheless, the Euroregional Cooperation has not neglected bilateral CBC but provided new impetuses thereto, especially in the activities pertaining to the development and implementation of joint projects nominated for the EU funds.