Transnational Action for Public Private Partnership
Financial, structural and territorial challenges in Central Europe ask for a strengthened teamwork of public and private actors to create and maintain attractive and competitive living conditions. Due to economic and demographic changes and limits to public resources (financial, know-how) the provision of public tasks and regional/urban restructuring can no longer be provided efficiently by public bodies alone and cities/regions risk to lose their position in European competition. Public private partnerships (PPP) – based on long lasting cooperation – are promising and innovative options for restructuring, urban renewal and improved public tasks.

ACT4PPP wants to promote and further develop PPP as strategic tool for enhancing private involvement in territorial development. PPPs do not only ask for legal, financial and organisational know-how but require also strategic and political key decisions, especially as PPP is not suitable for all public tasks or all situations and there are several difficulties to be considered. For using the tool PPP efficiently, many cities and regions still need support and training. Especially for many new member states PPP is still new and the application does not extend first testing.

As experiences among the regions in Central Europe widely differ, a transnational cooperation will be highly valuable for exchanging knowledge, fostering of common learning, transfer of experiences for wise application and gaining a high surplus compared to single efforts. Using PPP as a territorial development tool especially on a transnational level has not yet been addressed systematically and therefore ACT4PPP will highlight potentials and limitations for the targeted involvement of private stakeholders in territorial development processes.