San Marino officially joins the EUSAIR!
The inclusion of San Marino to the EUSAIR is another step for the country to foster its European integration and regional cooperation with neighbouring EU Member States and candidate and potential candidate countries.
With the adoption of the Budva Declaration in 2019 under Montenegrin Chairmanship, San Marino had already joined the AII, becoming its tenth Participating Country.
The cooperation on equal footing within EUSAIR will further align San Marino with EU policies and joint actions responding to macro-regional challenges. It will enhance the coordination and dialogue between EUSAIR countries and help San Marino to mobilise national funding for projects at macro-regional level, in cooperation with its new partners.
In this context, San Marino will also join the Interreg IPA ADRION programme, which supports the governance of the EUSAIR and covers the same geographic area. San Marino is a close EU neighbour and partner and established relations with the EU in 1983, sharing the EU’s core values.
Here the official Addendum to the EUSAIR Communication, proving San Marino inclusion in the Macro-regional Strategy.
San Marino's perspective on joining EUSAIR (*answers were edited by the Directorate of European Affairs of the Department of Foreign Affairs)
What was the driving force or idea in San Marino's decision to join EUSAIR? What are your expectations from cooperation in EU macro-regional strategy? How can EUSAIR contribute to the future of San Marino and vice versa?
San Marino expressed its wish to participate in EUSAIR in order to strengthen the already established cooperation among the Member Countries of the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative, as well as to contribute to the promotion of common interests related to issues of great strategic importance for the future, such as environment, resources and tourism. The Covid-19 pandemic also reinforced the conviction that regional cooperation, especially with the neighbouring Italian regions, is essential to deal with the health emergency and to assist citizens. San Marino can only benefit from participating in a macro-regional cooperation platform. The process of greater macro-regional integration undertaken by San Marino will undoubtedly be essential to imagine and plan a future where vulnerabilities can become elements of sustainable prosperity for the stakeholders involved in the strategy.
In your opinion, which are the 3 most important opportunities that EUSAIR should build upon and which goals is San Marino planning to pursue within EUSAIR?
San Marino’s action may be included in a new cooperation framework which will also be a highly valuable instrument for safety and recovery, taking into account the advantages deriving from the shared planning of projects of territorial improvement, environmental sustainability and tourist promotion, capable of promoting the heritage and potential of the Adriatic and Ionian macro-region. This cooperation will also allow to complement the skills and knowledge of the people who can act as technical experts and participate in the thematic groups of the Strategy: the dialogue with other technical experts already working in EUSAIR will be fundamental to acquire an adequate professional capacity to obtain specific results.
What is in your opinion the added value of EUSAIR comparing to other developments, strategies, policies, programmes and trends at the EU level?
The founding ties dear to the Republic of San Marino can be found in the Northern Adriatic region. These ties explain not only its birth and the subsequent historical events, but also connect the Republic to common challenges posed by the need to sustain regional cohabitation.
Despite its small territorial size, compared to the other Member Countries, which are much larger in terms of geography and population, San Marino hopes to be able to strengthen the principles underlying the process of European integration, which has found its appropriate and specific regional location in the EUSAIR, also resulting in appropriate policies of social, territorial and economic cohesion.