On Danube Day 2005, about 100 stakeholders from the entire Danube River Basin convene on 28-29 June 2005 in Budapest on invitation of the International Commission for the Protection of the River Danube (ICPDR). Participants learn about ICPDR activities and provide feedback on the ‘2004 Roof Report’, which had been prepared to meet the official reporting requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive. The conference contributes to a common understanding of the challenges lying ahead and formes an important basis for tackling them in future.

In the context of efforts to promote the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the entire Danube basin, the ICPDR, in its role as co-ordinator, has during the past years put a special emphasis on the promotion of public participation on a basin-wide scale according to the approach stipulated in article 14 of the Directive and detailed in the EU CIS Horizontal Guidance Document on Public Participation.

The conference aims to bring these stakeholder groups together and serve as a stepping stone for future participatory initiatives. Specifically, the following issues are to be addressed in the context of the conference:

• ICPDR Programme of Action and current initiatives in the basin,
• ICPDR's current approach to public participation; with a special view to granting an observer status to stakeholder groups,
• Exchange on the 2004 Roof Report for the Danube basin, elicitation of feedback from stakeholders with respect to the status analysis in view of the programme of measures to be developed by 2005,
• Exchange on the 2004 Roof Report for the Danube basin, elicitation of feedback from stakeholders with respect to the status analysis in view of the programme of measures to be developed by 2005,
• ICPDR 'Action Programme on Sustainable Flood Protection'.