EUSAIR - Final Report

Introduction to the Manual
for recognising and planning
green infrastructure
Now, more than ever, citizens feel the need for a healthy environment.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought people closer to nature, closer to profiting
more from the green spaces around them, whether they are in natural
areas, in the countryside or in urban spaces. This made clearer how fragile
is nature and how important it is to make every possible effort to protect it.
Green infrastructures are a key element for doing it and stopping the loss
of biodiversity. They provide huge benefits and vital services to people,
society and nature.
In regions in which many political borders create both administrative and
physical obstacles to the protection of nature and biodiversity, joint planning
and implementation of green infrastructures is key to reversing the
loss of biodiversity.
Macro-regional Strategies offer an ideal framework for policy coordination in
certain European regions. They allow harmonized implementation of the relevant
EU legislation and policy in both the participating Member States and
in candidate and potential candidate countries, thus facilitating alignment
with the EU acquis and practices in this sector. In particular, they contribute
to tailoring the implementation of the European Green Deal, including the
EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, to the needs of a specific territory crossing
several borders.
In order to support the efforts of the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian
Region and EU Strategy for the Danube Region for the deployment of Green
Infrastructures, the European Commission financed a study under the EU
Environment Partnership Programme for Accession (EPPA) in the Western
Balkans that identified conservation areas of high transboundary importance
and explored the level of existing landscape connections between them. The
study, finalized at the end of 2020, contributes to the EU Biodiversity Strategy
for 2030, as well as to establishing a coherent Trans-European Nature Network
and to the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Plan in the Region.
The Manual for Recognising and Planning Green Infrastructure is a positive
initiative that goes in exactly the same direction and we are confident that
can be a sound basis for planning an efficient network of green infrastructures
in the framework of EU Macro-regional Strategies.
Jean-Pierre Halkin
Head of Unit Macro-regions, Transnational/Interregional/
External Co-operation, Enlargement, Directorate General for Regional
and Urban Policy, European Commission
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