The emerging Danube Macro Region from the perspective of Budapest: Creating new networks of cooperation in development
The emerging Danube Macro Region from the perspective of Budapest: Creating new networks of cooperation in development

Author(s): Lívia Török, Ders Csaba
Subject(s): Geopolitics
Published by: Kossuth Kiadó Zt.
Summary/Abstract: The Budapest metropolitan region has been trying to define its place on the geopolitical, economic and “mental” map of the transforming Europe since Hungary has joined the EU in 2004. The structural forces of the economic crisis created again an opportunity and impetus to reconsider this dilemma. The emerging Danube Region in turn, provides a new framework of thinking in two ways: firstly, because it defines Budapest by the Danube within Europe, but at the same time because it redefines the role of the Danube in the identity of Budapest. The historical and geographical symbolism as well as the beauty of the Danube predestines it to be an ideal source of identity. But if we would like to utilize it to identify Budapest in geopolitical, economic, cultural etc. terms in the forming European space, we need to have a deeper understanding about the role of the river as a physical as well as a socio-cultural infrastructure in its broadest sense that can shape the life of the metropolis. This insight will allow us later on to reinterpret this relationship successfully, fostering a new emergent Budapest identity.

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