The Danube Euroregion will be the fourth in the EU after the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Sea Euroregions to bring together neighbouring states and regions, according to a final declaration voted by the participants in the Third European Conference of Danube Cities and Regions here on Friday.

The establishment of a Danube Euroregion sets up a new European axis from Schwartzwald to the Black Sea, which links ten states, a number of cities and various peoples and cultures, the declaration says.

The participants in the conference committed themselves to setting up a Council of Danube Cities and Regions as a new European institution to work for the creation of an integrated European Danube Euroregion, said Ivo Goenner, Mayor of Ulm, Germany.

The participants in the conference agreed to carry on the joint work on the projects developed so far, as well as to propose new economic, infrastructure, education, culture and tourism projects.

The next conference of Danube cities and regions will take place in Hungary in 2009, the participants decided.

More than 100 representatives of Danubian countries are taking part in the Third European Conference of Danube Cities and Regions (September 6-8). The Conference is organized within the framework of the European Danube Bureau network, jointly with Vidin Municipality and the Urban District of Ulm (Germany), as well as in cooperation with the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry and under the auspices of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin.

Five items dominated the forum's agenda on Friday: environment planning, economic and infrastructure development, culture and tourism, education and science, and projecting the Danube Region as a European model of multiethnic cooperation.

"Danube cooperation is assuming dimension that far exceed the ones that the idea originally set itself," Kalfin said, opening the conference. "What has changed in recent years is the EU membership of two Danube countries, Bulgaria and Romania, which opens up great opportunities for development. The River Danube is a mechanism through which we can establish useful contacts in the economy and environmental protection, culture and education. The link between the Black Sea and the Danube offers the countries enormous opportunities for development," he noted.