DETUROPE - The Central European Journal of Regional Development and Tourism 2024, 16(3):82-98 | DOI: 10.32725/det.2024.012

The evolution of SME development in the EU’s cross-border cooperation: the example of direct funding in the Hungary-Croatia Interreg programme

Zoltán Pámera, Petra Buttingerb, György Mártonb
a HUN-REN CERS Institute for Regional Studies, 7621 Pécs, Papnövelde u. 22.
b Logframe Consulting Office Ltd., 7621 Pécs, Rákóczi út 13/b.

Cross-border cooperation has become an integrated element of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy. In line with the strategic objectives, entrepreneurship and innovation have gained importance from period to period. Although cross-border programmes are generally understood as non-profit schemes, direct SME funding appeared already in the 2007-2013 period. On the basis of some Western European examples, a pilot programme was implemented in the Croatia-Hungary border area in the 2014-2020 period that

directly supported businesses.

The paper, after providing an overlook on SME development in EU cross-border cooperation, summarises the particularities of the analysed instrument. The paper defines two research questions: sectoral characteristics, specialisation patterns in some types of settlements; and the presence of innovation in the submitted and funded projects. The first question is answered through an analysis of the sectoral and settlement category breakdown of projects, while for the second a simple methodology is presented to measure to what extent innovation was in focus. For the analysis programme level data was used. The paper’s main finding is that, due to the logic of the scheme, innovation was easier to present in the case of more “materialised” sectors, such as wood processing, manufacturing and machine production, leading to higher success rates than in case of the service sector where cooperation between partners was

less obvious. Even if the majority of the projects only promoted market entrance instead of innovation, rural areas have shown a higher success rate, demonstrating a relatively balanced spatial structure.

Keywords: cohesion policy, cross-border cooperation, SME development, innovation, Hungary, Croatia

Published: February 3, 2025  Show citation

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Pámer, Z., Buttinger, P., & Márton, G. (2024). The evolution of SME development in the EU’s cross-border cooperation: the example of direct funding in the Hungary-Croatia Interreg programme. DETUROPE - The Central European Journal of Regional Development and Tourism, 16(3), 82-98. doi: 10.32725/det.2024.012
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