Discussion Papers 2009. 
Old and New Borderlines /Frontiers/ Margins 5-6. p. 
PREFACE 
Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences has organised the 
second East-Central European Regional Seminar – ECERS 2008 – in the city of 
Gyula, near the eastern border of Hungary. This conference was an important mile-
stone of the co-operation between Polish and Hungarian researchers. The aim of 
the seminar was to support the initiative of Warsaw Regional Forums and expand 
the XVIth Polish-Hungarian Geographic Seminar. This meeting aimed to highlight 
different aspects, spatial issues and problems of East-Central European borders, 
and the complexity of borderlands. 
On the first day participants took a short visit to Szarvas, and after that to 
Békéscsaba, the Department of Great Plain Institute – HAS CRS. On the occasion 
of the opening session they discussed the role of Békés county and the city of 
Gyula in crossborder cooperation with local notables and experts. 
On the second day, there were twelve presentations about different regional and 
geographic approaches, which reflected innovative viewpoints. Most of the pre-
senters talked about actual processes and conflicts of new spatial phenomena in EU 
countries, particularly crossborder opportunities, features of peripheral areas, envi-
ronmental and social problems. They identified new opportunities of spatial de-
velopment next to borderlands and talked about the unique potential of marginal 
areas. Some of the presentations were based on regional research; others were case 
studies or summaries of different pilot projects.  
During the presentations the importance of the environmental, cultural, touris-
tic and transport functions of borders and the long term perspectives of these kind 
of areas were emphasised. The main conclusion of the conference was that the 
special geopolitical and geographical positions give advantages for these zones. 
Everybody agreed that – beyond the recent political paradigm – there is a need to 
create multifunctional areas concerned with local cohesion, economic and ecologi-
cal sustainability for these border-lands. This sustainability must be based on coop-
eration and partnership.  
On the third day participants visited the city of Arad and met Romanian ex-
perts. They took a short trip to the transformed downtown and visited one of the 
most prosperous industrial parks of Romania. 
The participants were: Marek Degórski, Roman Kulikowski, Marek Wieck-
owski, Konrad Czapiewski and Marcin Mazur from the Institute of Geography and 
Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences; Maria Grozeva, Boris Kolev, 
Chavdar Mladenov, Boris Kazakov from the Geographical Institute of the Bulgar-
ian Academy of Sciences; and Antonín Vaishar, from the Institute of Geonics, 

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Kovács, András Donát : Preface 
In : Old and New Borderlines /Frontiers/ Margins. 
Pécs: Centre for Regional Studies, 2009. 5-6. p. Discussion Papers, Special 
 
6
ANDRÁS DONÁT KOVÁCS 
Czech Academy of Sciences, Ostrava. The Hungarian delegation was: Gyula 
Horváth, István Mezei, Erika Nagy, Gábor Nagy, Imre Nagy, Bálint Csatári, An-
drás Donát Kovács from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Regional 
Studies. 
We hope that it was a really fruitful scientific workshop with useful discussions 
and colourful excursions close to the Hungarian–Romanian border.  
The seminar presented a good occasion for strengthening the collegial partner-
ships. At the beginning of the first plenary session, we paid a one-minute silence to 
the memory of our honourable Polish colleague – Professor Andrzej Stasiak. 
The studies of the present volume are published with the intention to promote a 
better understanding of the phenomena and processes of new cross-border relations 
and their impact on the socio-economic and environmental development of East–
Central–European countries. 
 
Kecskemét, May 2009 
 
András Donát Kovács 
Secretary of ECERS 
 

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