ENI CBC in motion: September 2017
Many milestones await ENI CBC programmes in the months to come. Steady work is being made in parallel on several processes, involving an ever broader number of institutional actors. Some say that this renders CBC an over-architected instrument. We believe it deepens multi-level cooperation and dialogue. And we are happy to write about it.
Designations, descriptions and strategies
Right before the summer break, news reached us that the first official designation of a Managing Authority has taken place. Latvia-Russia has now broken the ice and work is well underway concerning the finalisation of the description of management and control systems in several other programmes, if not yet fully complete, as is the case for Kolarctic, Karelia, Southeast Finland-Russia, Romania-Ukraine, Romania-Moldova and Black Sea Basin. And in order to meet regulatory requirements, audit strategies will soon be available for most programmes. These will be followed by the first meetings of the Group of auditors, like the one of the Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine, which will take place in Budapest on 11 September, and the one of Italy-Tunisia later in the month. And the month of October will be packed with meetings of the Joint Monitoring Committees, but we will refer to these more in detail in our next issue.
We have repeatedly highlighted the importance of all these steps as a means to guarantee the success of ENI CBC. It is thanks to these foundations that the participation of local and regional actors can be adequately channelled through the calls for proposals. Talking about calls…
Engaging regional and local actors
Let’s take a small step back in time to report on things we left open in our last bulletin. Official statistics for Black Sea Basin will be available later in time. But we can already let you know that the 301 applications received include Lead applicants from all countries in all four priorities, with business and entrepreneurship in the tourism and cultural sectors attracting the highest number of applications and NGOs being the most active type of institution in nearly all participating countries.
July saw also the holding of events under the first and second call for proposals of Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine. On 6 and 7 July, project preparation workshops took place in Uzhgorod and Satu Mare, and were followed by a Partner search forum in Košice on 26 July. The three events gathered over 300 participants altogether and TESIM contributed actively to their organisation and delivery. By the way, the deadline for online submission of proposals under the second call has been extended until 27 October!
Back to the present, an information event on the first call for standard projects of the Med Sea Basin will take place in Cagliari on 11 September. The seminar, dedicated to potential applicants and partners from Sardinia, will mark the closing of the successful round of information activities throughout the Mediterranean which took place in June and July.
And why stop? Right after the approval of the first set of projects, Kolarctic has opened its second call for proposals, which will be open until 29 September. Information events, capacity building workshops and individual consultations will be run in the next two weeks in the participating Russian regions, and TESIM is very pleased to be on board in these ones as well. The programme aims at approving projects under this call already by beginning of December.
To conclude, later this month Lithuania-Russia will hold its opening conference in Svetlogorsk. The conference will not only launch the programme officially, but will provide stakeholders with an open platform for discussions and talks. By the seaside…nice!
As said, many processes running in parallel. This shows how active and engaged the ENI CBC community is. And our October bulletin will be packed with even more news, that’s for sure! In the meantime, keep yourself duly updated through the regular news published on our website.