Yes, it is compulsory to submit Partnership Statements (in Annex A – Grant Application Form, Sections 4.5 and 5.2) at the application moment. This document must be submitted as original by all partners, excluding the Applicant, but including the IPA Financial Beneficiary (if it is the case), as it represents a commitment of the partners (including IPA Financial Lead Beneficiary) towards the Applicant. Therefore, the Applicant has to submit the Declaration by the Applicant, the IPA Financial Lead Beneficiary has to submit the Declaration by the IPA Financial Lead Beneficiary and also Partnership Statement and partners have to submit Partnership Statements.
The first 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 on the 29th of January 2020 in Brussels, Belgium. The eligible participating countries of the new Programme involves ten states from the Black Sea Basin: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine.