The 1^st Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP), organised on 23-24 November 2017 in Munich, Germany, brought together nearly 600 participants from the Alpine region. The Forum was opened by Beate Merk, Bavarian Minister for European Affairs and Corina Creţu, Commissioner for Regional Policy. Both underlined the need for stronger macro-regional cooperation for the benefit of a common future in the Alpine region. Commissioner Creţu also stressed the importance of continuous and strong political commitment for the successful implementation of the Strategy and welcomed the Bavarian efforts regarding the embedding of EU macro-regional strategies in relevant EU policies after 2020. During the event, several workshops and sessions were held focusing on topics such as communication, environment, mobility, digitalization, and funding of EUSALP. The Forum also included a large Citizens Forum with a Citizens Dialogue hosted by the European Commission and a EUSALP Youth Conference. In its role as the political steering board of EUSALP, the General Assembly adopted the Munich Declaration, endorsing a list of implementation priorities from the Action Group Work Plans and underlining the need to further align funding instruments with the EUSALP objectives. The event was closed by Bavaria and Tyrol, who will take over the Presidency of the EUSALP in 2018 and organise the 2^nd Annual Forum on 20-21 November 2018 in Innsbruck. The outcomes of the Forum will be available on the EUSALP website.

In the framework of the Forum, winners of the Interreg Alpine Space project video competition were awarded. The awards were given to projects GRETA, AlpFoodWay and GaYA which produced the best and the most creative videos highlighting project aims and results. More information on the award ceremony is available here.