The fifth 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 27th of July 2021.
The representatives of the nine participating countries (Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine) and the European Commission discussed the fields of actions to be financed by the future Programme, based on the outcome of the second round of consultations of the stakeholders from the participating countries and following the written consultation of the Joint Programming Committee.
Following the discussions during the meeting there were agreed the fields of actions which shall be financed by the future Programme and the provisional breakdown of the Programme budget equally among the three Specific Objectives (research and innovation, climate change adaptation and environmental protection).
In addition, there were discussions about the size of small scale projects to be financed by the future Programme, being established between 250,000 and 500,000 Euro EU funds, while a low percentage of the Program budget is to be allocated for this type of projects. Other discussions were held on the possible options to ensure national co-financing for Technical Assistance, the role of the National Authorities and the Group of Auditors and also on the management verifications at Programme level, while related decisions are to be taken in future meetings, following internal consultations at national level. The Managing Authority – with the support of TESIM ENI CBC – technical assistance project funded by the EU – will continue to organize public consultations 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 regularly on this website at www.blacksea-cbc.net/interreg-next-bsb-2021-2027/.