Central Europe

Key messages

Climate change adaptation in the Central Europe region is supported in several policies, strategies and funding programmes at the transnational level of governance. It is mainly addressed by Priority 2 of the EU Interreg Central Europe Programme (2021-2027). This priority determines the EU co-funding of shared solutions for cross-border climate change challenges that require cooperation among organisations from different countries.
Article 12bis (2017) on Climate Change of the Carpathian Convention, a cooperation framework for implementing the common goals, requests Parties to pursue policies aiming at climate change mitigation and adaptation in all sectors relevant to the Convention.
Enhancing Climate Resilience is included among the objectives of the Central European Initiative (CEI) under Thematic agenda point 2.7 of the Action Plan (2024-2026).
The region partially overlaps with the Danube Area (Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia). The Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change (2018) of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) offers guidance on the integration of climate change adaptation into ICPDR planning processes.

Geographic scope

The Central Europe cooperation area includes a vast territory from the southern area, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the northern area, bordering the Baltic Sea. The 2021-2027 cooperation area substantially coincides with the whole extension of the previous Interreg Programme, covering the entire area of seven EU Member States (Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia), the central and eastern regions of Germany (now also including the region of Braunschweig) and the northern regions of Italy. A map comparing the old and new borders can be seen here.

Region's countries:

Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia

Why climate change adaptation matters in the Central Europe region

The 2024 European Climate Risk Assessment has shown that the Danube Area as part of Central-Eastern Europe is affected by multiple risks due to increasing drought, heat waves and river flooding. Policies and measures coordinated across borders need to be taken to effectively make this transnational region climate resilient.

Policy framework

1. Transnational cooperation programme

The INTERREG aims to promote cooperation beyond borders to make Central Europe cities and regions better places to live and work.

The 2021-2027 Programme recognises that Central Europe is in a time of transition. Its regions and cities are facing numerous challenges (including climate change) that know no borders and cannot be solved alone. The programme vision is a united central Europe that cooperates to become smarter, greener and better connected. It finances transnational projects, which develop, test and implement solutions that are urgently needed to make central Europe more resilient and attractive.

The Programme is expected to achieve:

Improved policy development, learning, and change;
Increased knowledge and capacity, including the knowledge transfer and exchange;
Better coordinated cooperation and enhanced governance at different levels;
Reduced barriers;
New or better services;
Behavioural change;
Leverage of public and private funds, including the preparation for follow-up investments.

The Programme focusses on four priorities:

Cooperating for a smarter central Europe
Cooperating for a greener central Europe
Cooperating for a better connected central Europe
Improving governance for cooperation in central Europe.

Climate change adaptation is particularly addressed by Priority 2, under the Specific Objective: ‘Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention and disaster resilience, taking into account eco-system based approaches’. Transnational cooperation actions under this objective are expected to achieve increased capacities to improve resilience and to timely counteract unfavourable climate change impacts in central Europe. They will also improve the coordination of adaptation measures and will favour the deployment of novel solutions which have been tested and demonstrated in pilot actions. Climate change adaptation will also benefit of actions developed according to Priority 1, that aims to improve and modernise skills of people locally and to Priority 4, that aims at improving multi-sectoral governance processes at all territorial levels. Actions undertaken to meet both these objectives will improve the enabling conditions to face common challenges of the regions, as climate change.

For the period 2014-2020, climate change adaptation was addressed as one among several environment-related sub-topics within Priority 3 of the Programme (Natural and cultural resources for sustainable growth in the region). It was more specifically covered within the objective aiming to improve integrated environmental management capacities for the protection and sustainable use of natural heritage and resources. In addition, the vulnerability of urban areas to climate change was identified as an issue under a further objective on “the improvement of environmental management of functional urban areas to make them more liveable places”. Finally, adaptation was part of the horizontal principles of the programme, particularly ‘sustainable development’ that includes actions to take into account climate change mitigation and adaptation, disaster resilience and risk prevention and management.

2. Macro-region strategies

Interreg Central Europe plays an important bridging function between the four EU macro-regional strategies, namely the EUSDR, EUSALP, EUSAIR and EUSBSR. The Central Europe region shares parts of its cooperation area with all of them which are dealing with climate adaptation on their transnational cooperation agendas in varying ways (see Climate-ADAPT pages on the Danube, Alpine Space, Adriatic-Ionian, and Baltic Sea regions).

3. International conventions and other cooperation initiatives

The Central Europe region partially overlaps with the perimeters of the Carpathian Convention and the Danube River Protection Convention (DRPC), which are almost entirely included in the Danube transnational region.

The Carpathian Convention is a subregional treaty to foster the sustainable development and the protection of the Carpathian region. It has been signed in May 2003 by seven Carpathian States (out of which four countries are part of the Central Europe Transnational Region). At the Fifth meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Carpathian Convention (COP5, 2017) an amendment to the Carpathian Convention was adopted to include the new Article 12bis on Climate Change. It requests Parties to pursue policies aiming at climate change mitigation and adaptation in all sectors relevant to the Convention. Consequently, the long term Vision 2030 for the Carpathian area was established ‘to strengthen collaborative efforts towards a climate-neutral path that delivers climate-resilient and sustainable development in the Carpathians’.

The Danube River Protection Convention (DRPC) forms the overall legal instrument for co-operation on transboundary water management in the Danube River Basin. Fourteen countries (out of which seven are also part of the Central Europe Transnational region) and the European Union have committed themselves to implement this Convention. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) is the transnational body which has been established to implement the Danube River Protection Convention. The ICPDR works towards managing flood risks in sustainable ways. The Flood Protection Expert Group (FP EG) supports the implementation of the Action Programme for Sustainable Flood Protection in the Danube River Basin. It also assists implementing the activities related to the implementation of the EU Floods Directive, such as the development of flood hazard and risk maps and the Danube River Basin Flood Risk Management Plan.

The Central European Initiative (CEI) is a regional intergovernmental forum of 17 Member States in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It includes all countries of the EU Central Europe transnational region. It fosters European integration and sustainable development through regional cooperation. CEI work is focused on achieving two main goals: Green Growth & Just Societies. Enhancing Climate Resilience is included among the objectives of the CEI Action Plan, under the Goal 1 “Stimulating the Green Growth”.

4. Adaptation strategies and plans

Existing transnational and cross-border strategies and plans addressing adaptation concerns that are relevant for parts of the Central Europe region, have an overriding focus on water resource and flood risk management in the Danube River basin. The Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) as well as the relevance of the Danube River Basin Management Plan (DRBM Plan) and the Danube Flood Risk Management Plan (DFRM Plan) for adaptation are described in Danube transnational region section of Climate-ADAPT.

For the Carpathian area, a specific region of Central Europe, the Action Plan issued in 2020 accompanying the Long-term Vision 2030 “towards combating climate change in the Carpathians” sets out concrete activities and milestones to achieve the strategic objectives and related targets of the vision. The Action Plan shall provide overall guidance for the Working Group on Climate Change (established within the framework of the Carpathian Convention) and related workplans.