Romania-Bulgaria programme launches new call for strategic project ideas

On 8 July 2009, the Romania-Bulgaria cross-border cooperation programme 2007-2013, launches a new call for strategic project ideas. This call will follow the stages set out in the Methodology for generating strategic project ideas, approved by the Joint Monitoring Committee on 23 June 2009.

According to this methodology, the project ideas must fall within the following areas: accessibility (infrastructure and transport services and IT&C), environment (environmental protection, disaster prevention and intervention in case of emergency), economic and social development (supporting the business environment promotion of the cross-border area, human resources development), scientific research.

Next, we are presenting the call development stages and their calendar:

1. The initiator of a strategic project idea will fill in a standard form, which can be downloaded from the website of the programme - www.cbcromaniabulgaria.eu, to provide a clear picture of the project objective and activities. This sheet will include: project title, initiator‘s name, potential partners in Romania and Bulgaria, applicability area, overall objective, main activities and their results, relevance for the cross-border region and cross-border impact, innovative features, other useful information, which will be transmitted to the Joint Technical Secretariat of the programme by 31 August 2009.

2. In parallel, a working group composed of representatives of the two partner states, will hold working meetings and discussions with the initiators of strategic projects, with the purpose of creating partnerships and consolidate strategic project ideas.

3. From the ideas collected by the Joint Technical Secretariat, the Working Group will propose the Joint Monitoring Committee to select the most relevant.

4. The Joint Monitoring Committee will approve the project ideas and also the applicant’s package to be made available to beneficiaries, in order to elaborate full strategic projects.

5. These strategic projects will be submitted to the headquarters of the Technical Secretariat of the Programme in Calarasi, until a date to be established and announced later.

6. The next steps to be taken are the process of assessing the submitted projects and their approval by the Joint Selection Committee of the programme.

Strategic projects are those projects with major impact on the cross-border region, which tackle aspects of particular importance from the point of view of the programme that finances them. They imply, as a rule, the involvement of the key actors in the two states, in general at central level, and require resources beyond those of an ordinary project.

Additional information on the process of generation and selection of strategic projects will be made public as they appear. For further details please consult the webpage of the programme, www.cbcromaniabulgaria.eu.

Issuer: MDLPL