Associates play a real role in the Action but do not receive funding from the grant with the exception of travel and subsistence costs. Associates do not have to meet the eligibility criteria.
The Beneficiaries have the possibility to award contracts to subcontractors. Subcontractors are neither partner nor associates, and are subject to the procurement rules set out in Annex IV of the Grant Contract.
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.