The eight meeting of the Joint Programming Committee – body responsible for the preparation of the Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme 2021-2027 – was held in virtual format on the 10th of May 2022.

The representatives of the participating countries in the Programme (Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine) and of the European Commission agreed on the final version of the Programme for the 2021-2027 programming period.

The final version reflects the European Union’s decision to exclude the Russian Federation from the European territorial cooperation programmes following the military aggression in Ukraine and it was developed based of the conclusions of the public consultation with the stakeholders in the participating countries during December 2021 – January 2022 and following the recommendations received from the European Commission during the informal consultations. Some aspects regarding the eligible area of the Programme in the current international context will be finalized in the near future.

Moreover, it was discussed and agreed on the final version of the performance framework methodology for setting up the indicators at the Programme level, developed following the recommendations received from the European Commission during the informal consultations.

Following the discussions, it was agreed to official submit the documents to the European Commission for approval (after the approval stages at the level of the Governments and of the responsible institutions in the participating states), as well as to mandate the Managing Authority to operate potential changes to the documents within the official consultations and negotiations with the European Commission.

The Managing Authority – with the support of TESIM ENI CBC – technical assistance project funded by the EU – had organized public consultations over the eligible area of the Programme in order to further develop and finalize the cooperation Programme document. The documents of public interest regarding the Interreg NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme 2021-2027 are published regularly on this websitet in the dedicated section for the next Programme.