The first European TalentDay was held on April 9th, 2011. This coincided with the Hungarian EU Presidential Conference on Talent Support, held in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 on April 7-9, 2011. Conference delegates proposed March 25, birthday of Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

, as EU TalentDay. This event will now be celebrated annually on the new date.

Purpose

The Budapest Declaration on Talent Support, written on the first EU TalentDay, includes the following points about the purpose of talent development in the European Union and of EU TalentDay:

• Talent development has beneficial effects on the economies of individual nations, and of the European Union as a whole.
• Talent support programmes may boost the self-esteem and social success of talented people.
• Talent support is becoming important in the social-economic progress of underprivileged people groups.
• Effective networking of groups facilitating talent development, as is now happening in Hungary, will be even more beneficial once extended across Europe.
• EU TalentDay can help to focus the attention of stakeholders and the European general public, and seeks recognition of talents support benefits and of best practices by the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament.