Public consultation of Interreg Europe Cooperation Programme 2021-2027
Interreg Europe has already published the draft version of the Interreg Europe cooperation programme for 2021-2027 and kindly invites you to actively participate in its public consultation. It is a unique opportunity to share your views and contribute to the final design of the future Interreg Europe programme. The deadline to complete the survey is on April 16th.
As a part of the public consultation, Interreg also arranged a public consultation webinar last March 24th. Through this article, we will remark the content of the draft programme analysed during the webinar by the Programming experts Amparo Montan, Pascal Chazaud and Tako Popma and by the Interreg Europe members Nicolas Singer and Erwin Siweris.
The document, approved on the 25th of February by the Interreg Europe programming committee, is the end product of 18 months of constant consultations and discussions between the 29 Partner States (Switzerland, Norway and the 27 EU Member States).
The overall rationale of this programme is to improve regional development policies (including investment for Jobs and Growth programmes), through the exchange of experience, innovative approaches and capacity building. It is mainly focused on the cross-cutting priority of capacity building based on governance as well as smart, green, connected, and social citizens. The proposed priority is better cooperation governance, with the specific objective of enhancing the institutional capacity of public authorities and relevant stakeholders. For this, 80% of (indicative) funding will go to Smarter, Greener and Social Europe and will focus on the labour market, health care, culture and sustainable tourism. 20% of (indicative) funding will bet on a more connected Europe that is closer to citizens and more social based on education, inclusion and integration of third country nationals.
On the other hand, the core target groups will be the policy responsible organizations, among which we find national, regional and local authorities, as well as other bodies responsible for regional development policies. Likewise, other actors can be business support and organizations, environmental organizations and education and research institutions. Finally, they remarked that any other relevant actors (SMEs, for example) can also be involved in projects through regional stakeholders groups.
In addition, during the webinar the two main actions were explained. First are the Interregional cooperation projects that aim to improve, through an exchange of experience, the implementation of the regional development policies of the participating regions. Second is the Policy Learning Platform, that facilitates policy learning and capitalization of the regional policy good practices on an on-going basis.
All these considered, the Interregional Cooperation Projects for 2021-2027 share four new characteristics that we need to consider. Firstly, there is a lighter focus on structural funds programs. Secondly, there will be a core phase of 3 years, to which the follow-up phase of 1 year is added. Thirdly, the action plans will be carried out only when needed and the pilot actions can be developed from the start (learning by doing). This represents a total difference with the projects of the 2014-2020 period that had a particular focus on improving Structural Funds programs, and which were divided into two phases where the actions plans were mandatory, and the pilot actions only took place in phase two.
Finally, the four main services for this new period 2021-2027 are the good practice database, community of peers (meetings and networking), expert policy support (peer review, help desk) and knowledge hub (policy briefs and news).
In conclusion, as they pointed out during their presentation, this new programme won't suppose a revolution because the key features remain. It is a pan-European programme whose overall objective is to continue improving regional development policies. But, of course, it will suppose evolution! Its single priority is to better reflect the core nature of the programme (capacity building) and there is an enlargement of the scope of the programme. Moreover, there is a lighter focus on structural funds and learning by doing will be facilitated. Finally, the platform services will be opened to further developments.
Your participation in the survey can determine the final version of the program that the Partner States and the European Commission will then approve. Let us continue with helping and supporting interregional cooperation among regions from all across Europe!
The fourth draft of the Interreg Europe cooperation programme 2021-2027 can be read here. At the end of the programming process the final version will be available.
You can complete the public consultation survey here. It will only take 10 minutes of your time!
You can see the recording of the webinar here.
