The Hungarian-Slovenian Cross-Border Joint Committee held its founding session on 26 November 2009 at Lendva (Lendava) in Slovenia. The establishment of the Joint Committee is the result of a long preparatory work and is a good example for the efficient cooperation of the two countries.
The first Hungarian-Slovenian cross-border regional working group session organised by the predecessor of the Ministry of Local Government and the Slovenian Governmental Office for Local Government and Regional Policy was held at Lenti on 10 October 2007, which was followed by the signing of the “Agreement on the facilitation of the border region cooperation between local and regional authorities” on the first Hungarian-Slovenian joint governmental session on 17 October 2007. Article 5 of the Agreement envisages the establishment of a Joint Committee that holds its sessions annually for consulting on matters affecting border region cooperation.
On the founding session Dr. Rudolf Virág, State Secretary for Public Law and Coordination, the Co-Chairman of the Hungarian section and Roman Lavtar the Co-Chairman of the Slovenian section signed the Charter of the Joint Committee.
The objective of the Joint Committee is to facilitate the exploration of region specific solutions to the effects of the economic crisis, the cooperation of the affected municipalities, regional authorities, players through the joint inclusion of local, regional and central levels, to encourage the launching of joint projects or the strengthening of the already existing cooperation frames among the inhabitants of the border region. On the founding session the particular projects submitted by the local level, the cooperation proposals and the prominent cooperation fields were discussed as well as the topics of the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation and the Slovenian-Hungarian Cross-Border Cooperation Program 2007-2013.