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The EU Commission published a draft text of the Interreg III program. The new commissioner for Structural Policies, Mr Michel Barnier, hopes that Interreg III will make it easier to prepare the EU enlargement, at the same time keeping the former main purpose, which is to bring the EU citizens closer. One important difference is that it is more than four times as large in terms of money available.
The overall aim of the INTERREG Initiatives is that national borders should not be a barrier to the development and integration Europe. Actions in relation to the border areas between Member States and between the EU and nonmember countries is at the heart of the Initiative.
The minimum size of projects will be 2 million.
The new INTERREG will have three activity areas or "strands":
Strand A
Eligible areas of projects under Strand A are all neighbouring regions in Europe close to a border. The Baltic Sea is not considered a border as such in Strand A, and thus the only eligible areas at the Baltic Sea Coast are the Kreises in Germany at the Polish and Danish border, parts of east and south Denmark, Scania in South Sweden, Stockholm County, South Finland and most of the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.
50-80 % of the total funding shall be allocated to Strand A, depending on national priorities. Priority areas are, among others, SME developments, labour market integration, sharing human resources, protection of the environment, improvement of transport and energy efficiency.
Strand B
Strand B is more transnational than cross-border. Eligible regions do not have to be immediately adjacent. Strand B can be considered a continuation of Interreg IIC, with similar aims and groupings of areas of interest.
The projects should deal with operational spatial development strategies on a transnational scale, including cooperation among cities and between urban and rural areas, promoting polycentric and sustainable development. Among fields of actions are to promote efficient and sustainable transport systems and access to the information
society, promote the preservation of the environment and good management of natural resources. Eligible areas for Strand
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2 are found in eleven, partly overlapping regions in Europe. The Baltic Sea region is one of them, as shown at the map. The only UBC member city which is not located in an eligible region is our Board member city of Bergen.
Strand C
is intended for Interregional cooperation to create better methods for economic development. This Strand replaces the former RECITE and Ecos Ouverture programs. Strand C covers
exchange of experience and good practice under Strands A and B, as well as cooperation actions related to other topics such as |
competent bodies.
Special concerns regarding financing the participation of partners from Phare countries are taken. The problems regarding lack of coordination between Phare and ERDF have been eliminated. The implementation of the program will be brought down from Brussels to the regions, and several bureaucratic rules from Interreg IIC have been eliminated.
The draft guidelines will be discussed with the EU member states. The final version will be published in the beginning of next year. The member states have six months to prepare and present national Interreg III programs. TheEU Commission has five months to agree on the national |
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research, technological development and SMEs; the information society; tourism, culture and employment; entrepreneurship and environment, etc. This is by far the smallest strand
financially. All regions in EU are eligible regardless of locations.
Partnerships
A wide partnership must be developed; including not only "institutional" partners from national, regional and local authorities, but also economic and social partners and other relevant
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programs.
The program will be effective earliest 2001. The projects will be very large in terms of money. Well prepared projects where there is time for lobbying and networking has much greater chance to be approved those projects that have been created very hastily. So it is time to start already now with plans and ideas for projects. The aim should be to get as much EU money for projects to our Baltic Sea Region as possible.
Juhan Janusson
juhan@post11.tele.dk |
