The second meeting of the Joint Programming Committee – body responsible for the preparation of the Interreg NEXT (Neighbourhood External) Black Sea Basin Programme 2021-2027 – was held online on the 9^th of December 2020. The eligible participating countries of the new Programme involves nine participating countries: Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine.

The representatives of the participating countries and the European Commission discussed the outcome of the draft Territorial Analysis developed for the eligible area of the Programme.

In addition, there were discussions about the process of consultations of stakeholders regarding the outcome of the Territorial Analysis and for thematic concentration and also about the involvement of other programme partners in the Joint Programming Committee in order to ensure the compliance of the partnership principle. In the same time, an analysis process regarding the opportunity of financing Strategic Importance Projects was initiated.

Following the discussions during the meeting it was agreed to start the consultations of the stakeholders from the participating countries regarding the draft Territorial Analysis of the eligible area of the Programme from January 2021, while the final version of the document to be approved during the next meeting of the Joint Programming Committee. The Managing Authority, with the support of TESIM ENI CBC – technical assistance project funded by the EU – will hold consultations with key actors during 2021 over the eligible area of the Programme. The documents of public interest regarding the Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme 2021-2027 will be published on this website at www.blacksea-cbc.net/interreg-next-bsb-2021-2027/.