This is the proposal made by Mayor Frank Klingebiel, which the Salzgitter City Council will decide on at its meeting on February 22. The Lower Saxony Ministry for Federal and European Affairs and Regional Development has launched a new funding program to ensure attractive living conditions in all parts of Lower Saxony in the long term. By promoting joint projects and the formation of a Zukunftsregion, cooperation between neighboring districts and independent cities is to be supported for an initial period of six years. A total of around 95 million euros from EU funds will be made available for this purpose, with each Zukunftsregion receiving around 12.5 million euros.

The project partners have already agreed on two fields of action from the funding program: Regional Innovation Capability and Low CO2 Society and Circular Economy.

"These topics are of particular interest to the city of Salzgitter, but also to the region. They build on the Hydrogen Campus Salzgitter and complement the topics of CO2 minimization and hydrogen transformation currently being worked on there," explains Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel. "The Hydrogen Campus Salzgitter is the nucleus in this field in the region."

The Lower Saxony Ministry for Federal and European Affairs and Regional Development has already provided 80,000.00 euros to enable the Zukunftsregion SüdOstNiedersachsen to draw up a joint concept for the region.

"By signing the cooperation agreement, all those involved are sending a strong signal for the development and innovative capacity of the region," says Mayor Frank Klingebiel. "We are working on being able to present a concept that is convincing and enables us to obtain further funding."