Within the #ACCESS project framework, the experts of CESCI and CESCI Carpathia seek solutions for legal and administrative obstacles hindering cross-border integration and mobility across the Slovak-Hungarian border. One of the obstacles is the difficulty of integrated management of a cross-border geopark.

On 11 September the representatives of the municipalities of Salgótarján and Fiľakovo, the Bükk National Park Directorate and the Hungarian Agrarian Ministry (as the maintainer of the National Park) met in Ipolytarnóc, at the Fossils Visitor Centre. The meeting was attended by Zsolt Becsó, a member of the Hungarian parliament, and deputy of the region.

The Novohrad-Nógrád Geopark which unites the territories of 64 Hungarian and 28 Slovak municipalities was inaugurated in the UNESCO European and Global Geopark Networks in 2010, as the first labelled cross-border geopark of the world. However, the label was offered to a Slovak association and a Hungarian Nonprofit Ltd., therefore, the joint representation and the integrated development of the region have always been difficult. Between 2011 and 2016 the Novohrad-Nógrád European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) was the first attempt to manage the cross-border geological heritage jointly but the grouping established by two local municipalities had no competence over the territory of the remaining 90 municipalities and the use of the label, it faced financial problems and was dissolved in 2021. In 2022 it was the Bükk National Park Directorate being the caretaker of the environmental assets of the region which made a recommendation to set up a new EGTC following the example of the groupings established by two European cross-border geoparks (which previously opted for this institutional solution based on the model of the Novohrad-Nógrád EGTC), involving also the national park as a member.

The participants of the September meeting discussed the main points of the two funding documents of the planned grouping: the conditions for joint ownership of the two national labels, membership and territorial competence, name, representation, financing and management of the EGTC. The prospective members agreed on the next preparatory steps which are necessary for the finalisation of the Convention and the Statutes to be drafted by CESCI which is forecasted to be the first half of 2025.

The legal obstacles to joint ownership of a cross-border UNESCO label and the integrated management of the first cross-border geopark in the world seem to be solvable through the involvement of the Slovak association as a member of the EGTC and the transfer of the Hungarian label from the nonprofit Ltd. to the municipality of Salgótarján as a founding member of the grouping. This might be the first legal barrier to be eliminated by the #ACCESS project.