Regional INSPIRE  Forum in Skopje, held on 24th April 2013 was great opportunity for formal and informal gathering for more than sixty participants who could hear interesting presentations and participate in discussions. It was the second regional INSPIRE Forum organized by the INSPIRATION project. The focus was on the regional cooperation in SDI. The Forum was opened by Sonja Lipitkova, State secretary at Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, and Fritz Kroiss, team leader of the INSPIRATION project.  During the morning session Tomaž Petek from Slovenian Surveying and Mapping Authority talked about challenges and opportunities for regional cooperation in the field of SDI and Cadastre, and Rik Wouters presented EULIS (European Land Information Service) and its BALCON project for the Western Balkans region.
 
In his presentation Fritz Kroiss gave introduction to legal aspects of multinational co-operation, using two examples - Danube Convention and Sava Commission. Afterwards, panel discussion Ways towards a Regional Cooperation followed, participated by Sonja Dimova (Agency for Real Estate Cadastre Macedonia), Tomislav Ciceli (State Geodetic Administration Croatia), Vlado Cetl (Joint Research Centre of EU), Christian Ansorge (Austrian Environmental Agency) and Martin Koska (Slovak Environmental Agency). Panellists were discussing topics such as - opportunities for national cadastral agencies in regional cooperation, importance and influence of other regional initiatives, financial aspects of regional cooperation, obstacles, challenges, etc. Martin Koska mentioned how it would be of utmost importance for all countries in the region to implement INSPIRE Directive as soon as possible, irrespective of their status towards the EU accession, because of all the benefits INSPIRE brings.
 
In the afternoon session John Orsaris of Oracle presented on location based intelligence. Vesna Posloncec-Petric and Ivica Skender spoke on education on SDI and INSPIRE in a regional context whose main recommendations were to focus on target orientated and cost efficient approach and to increase regional cooperation in general. Furthermore, they presented main results of project INSPIRATION Regional study on Capacity building and education. The planned presentation of another IPA regional project, RENA – Regional environmental Network for Accession, was left out for reasons of delay with the agenda and necessary time management considerations.
 
In the last thematic session Branko Lukezic (IGEA Mak) spoke on regional experiences in building effective real estate systems and Natasha Ilieva Acevska introduced participants with NALAS (Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South East Europe) that through different regional initiatives, promotes decentralization in SEE following the principles of the European Charter of Local Self Government.