An opinion on a macro-regional strategy for the Mediterranean was adopted at the October CoR plenary session. The opinion addresses the shared challenges the Mediterranean region faces and calls for a macro-regional strategy to be created in order to tackle them effectively. ECR First Vice-President Ortyl congratulated the rapporteur on the opinion he had produced and expressed the hope that strategies for both the Carpathians and the Mediterranean would soon be adopted by the European Union. 

"I had the honour of being the European Committee of the Regions' rapporteur for the macro-regional strategy on the Carpathians. I am also chair of the Carpathian Interregional Group at this institution. In my opinion, I noted the position of the Council of the European Union, in which Member States had indicated their willingness to consider joint initiatives to develop new macro-regional strategies. To date, we have only four such strategies in the European Union. I would like the Carpathian and Mediterranean strategies to become the fifth and sixth. This would enable our regions to harness our unique potential more effectively", said Mr Ortyl. 

The proposal for a macro-regional strategy for the Carpathian area is a mature initiative, strongly underpinned by action taken at all levels of government: local, regional, national and European. The institutional forms of cooperation between the communities of the Carpathian countries are the 2003 Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians, the Carpathian Euroregion established in 1993 and the Carpathian Interregional Group, in operation at the European Committee of the Regions since 2016, with Władysław Ortyl as its chair and comprising members from four countries.

Initiatives taken at government level led to the signing of the Carpathian Declaration in 2018 by representatives of the governments of Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland. On 21 February 2020, at the initiative of the Minister for Development Funds and Regional Policy, Małgorzata Jarosińska-Jedynak, and chaired by her, the inaugural meeting of the Carpathian Executive Council took place in Krasiczyn, with the aim of facilitating the consistent and effective development of the Carpathian Strategy at government level.